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PUBLICATIONS 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


AMERICANA  GERMANICA 

MONOGRAPHS  DEVOTED  TO  THE  COMPARATIVE 
STUDY  OF  THE 

Literary,  Linguistic  and  Otlier  Cultural  Relations 

OF 

Germany  and  America 

EDITOR 

MARION    DEXTER    LEARNED 
University  of  Pennsylvania 

(See  List  at  the  End  of  the  Book) 


UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


ROBERT  REITZEL 


BY 
ADOLF  EDUARD  ZUCKER 

V 


A  THESIS 
Presented  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Graduate  School,  in  Partial  Fulfill- 
ment   of    the    Requirements  for    the   Degree  of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy 


Attwrtratta  C^ermattira 

Number   25. 


AtturUana  (Bstmanita  Prrao 

Philadelphia 

19  17 


All  my  life  I  have  spoken  and  written  German,  drunk, 
loved  and  dreamed  in  German  fashion;  yes,  I've  even  asked 
them  to  notify  God,  that  in  case  there  is  such  a  thing  as  immor- 
tality I  should  prefer  the  hell  of  the  old  Vandals  and  Saxons 
who  never  bowed  their  necks  in  baptism  to  the  heaven  of  the 
Christians — and  still  honorable  ix)liticians,  rich  shop-keepers, 
Philistines  with  no  ideals  whatsoever,  and  other  noble  folk  whose 
knowledge  of  German  extends  no  further  than  the  catechism,  the 
multiplication  table,  and  the  J  Vac  lit  am  Rhcin  come  to  tell  me 

that  I  am  no  true  German! 

Robert  Reitzel. 


7^7 


OI0 


PREFACE 

Robert  Reitzel  and  his  Armer  Teufel  are  practically  un- 
known among  historians  of  the  German- Americans  and  their 
literature.  It  is  the  purpose  of  this  little  volume  to  direct  the  at- 
tention of  those  interested  in  things  German-American  to  this 
unique  and  powerful  writer,  the  greatest  among  German-Amer- 
ican authors,  and  possibly  to  suggest  further  and  deeper  studies 
of  his  life  and  his  works.  His  worth  has  been  recognized  by  his 
friends,  and  they  have  done  a  great  deal  to  afford  him  the  honor 
that  is  his  due.  Shortly  after  his  death  they  published  Mein 
Buck  (now  out  of  print),  a  one-volume  collection  of  some  of  his 
essays  and  poems  edited  by  Martin  Drescher.  In  19 13  the 
"Reitzel  Klub"  (Dr.  Tobias  Sigel,  Breitmeyer  Building,  Detroit, 
Mich.)  issued  in  three  500-page  volumes,  leather-bound.  Des 
Armen  Teufels  Gesammelte  Schriften,  with  an  introduction  by 
Max  Baginski.  These  volumes,  of  the  greatest  importance  both 
in  literary  as  well  as  in  cultural  history,  ought  to  be  found  in 
every  German  library  in  America,  Reitzel's  friend,  George  W. 
Spier  (310  Ninth  Street,  Washington,  D.  C.)  has  published 
Das  Reitsel- Album,  a  collection  of  portraits  and  drawings  of 
Reitzel.  Since  these  books  together  with  the  files  of  the  Arme 
Teufel  (now  exceedingly  rare)  represent  all  the  literature  on 
this  subject,  I  dispense  with  appending  a  bibliography  tO'  this 
dissertation.  This  monograph  is  the  first  on  Robert  Reitzel, 
except  for  a  short  master's  thesis  by  P.  E.  Werckshagen  under 
the  direction  of  Prof.  O.  E.  Lessing,  of  which  there  is  extant 
but  one  typewritten  copy  in  the  library  of  the  University  of 
Illinois.  The  first  chapter  of  my  dissertation  appeared  in  the 
German- American  Annals  in  191 5. 

I  am  indebted  for  my  acquaintance  with  the  works  of 
Reitzel  to  Mrs.  Fernande  Richter,  the  St.  Louis  woman  who 
imder  the  nom  de  plume  of  Edna  Fern  has  given  us  the  best  short 
stories  written  by  a  German  in  this  country.     Last  summer  she 

(7) 


8  Preface 

kindly  permitted  me  to  peruse  the  files  of  the  Arme  Ten f el  in 
her  library,  and  in  the  course  of  many  conversations  told  me  in 
her  delightful  way  much  of  the  history  of  Reitzel's  paper  and 
the  personality  of  its  editor.  Without  her  friendly  cooperation 
this  study  could  not  have  been  made.  To  her  also  do  I  owe 
my  introduction  to  Martin  Drescher,  the  third  in  the  circle  of 
German-American  naturalists  and  another  close  friend  of 
Reitzel's  whose  reminiscences  also  helped  to  round  out  the  pic- 
ture of  this  German  Charles  Lamb,  as  one  is  apt  to  call  Reitzel 
after  reading  his  delightful  Plandereien.  Mr.  Konrad  Schweier 
presented  me  with  several  volumes  of  the  Arme  Teufel.  Others 
who  aided  me  in  my  work  are  Dr.  Tobias  Sigel,  Mr.  Carl  E. 
Schmidt,  Mr.  George  W.  Spier,  and  Mr.  Ernst  Kurzenknabe.  I 
also  wish  to  acknowledge  some  very  valuable  suggestions  by 
Prof.  M.  D.  Learned  and  Prof.  D.  B.  Shumway  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania. 

Adolf  E.  Zucker. 
University  of  Pennsylvania 
Twelfth-night,  1917 


Robert  Reitzel 


Doch  aus  dem  Dunkel  lodern  noch  die  Flamraen, 
Die  lodernd  deine  Seele  einst  entfacht. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   LIFE   OF    ROBERT    REITZEL 

Robert  Reitzel,  the  editor  of  the  Arme  Teufel,  stands  pre- 
eminent among  German-American  authors.  For  fourteen  years 
his  brilHant  essays  and  his  inspiring  poems  fascinated  the  read- 
ers of  his  weekly,  the  most  widely  circulated  German  literary 
journal  ever  published  in  America.  Furthermore,  he  exerted 
great  influence  as  a  speaker  in  "Freien  Gemeinden,"  or  wherever 
people  were  willing  to  hear  the  gospel  of  liberty  and  of  beauty 
in  the  language  of  Lessing,  Goethe,  and  Schiller.  Tho  he 
can  by  no  means  be  called  a  great  orator  like  Ingersoll  or  Carl 
Schurz,  yet  this  short,  stocky  man,  with  curly  black  hair  and 
powerful  moustache  adorning  his  "Charakterkopf"  (in  some 
pictures  his  profile  recalls  Nietzsche),  made  a  great  impression 
on  his  audiences,  and  many  old  "free-thinkers"  will  tell  with 
glowing  eyes  of  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  their  leader  and  hero. 
A  propagandist  for  liberty — religious,  moral,  social — but  an 
artist  to  the  core,  who  found  the  inspiration  for  his  work  in  the 
varied  activities  of  his  life,  his  loves,  his  struggles,  his  suf- 
fering, and  who  left  the  impress  of  his  personality  on  all  that 
he  wrote.  There  is  little  melancholy  reflection  in  Reitzel;  his 
is  a  yea-saying  philosophy;  he  finds  great  joy  in  life  and  little 
to  grieve  over  in  death.  Since  all  his  poems  are  so  closely  con- 
nected with  his  life,  and  can  best  be  understood  in  the  light 
of  his  experiences  in  the  Old  and  New  World,  I  cite  them  in 
connection  with  the  events  of  his  life,  "ein  Dichterleben." 

The  life  of  Robert  Reitzel  might  be  cited  in  support  of  the 
theory  that  prenatal  influences  determine  to  a  great  extent  the 
later  development  of  a  man.     For  this  lifelong  revolutionist  was 

(9) 


10  Robert  Reitsel 

not  only  born  in  the  stormy  days  of  revolution,  on  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  January,  1849,  but  all  other  circumstances  of  his  birth 
tended  to  foster  in  him  a  bitter  hatred  of  monarchies  and 
bureaucracies.  In  the  night  in  which  he  was  born,  the  police 
searched  the  house  of  the  Reitzels  for  a  participant  in  the  revolu- 
tion, the  brother  of  Reitzel's  mother,  to  whom  on  this  winter 
night  his  father  had  tried  to  refuse  shelter  for  fear  of  losing  his 
position.  His  mother,  however,  finally  prevailed  on  him  to  give 
the  refugee  protection.  This  left  a  deep  impression  on  his  life, 
for  it  alienated  his  mother's  affection  from  her  husband  com- 
pletely, and,  later  on,  Reitzel's  as  well.  Reitzel's  sympathy 
always  was  with  his  mother.  She  gave  him  the  name  Robert,  in 
memory  of  Robert  Blum,  the  man  of  the  people,  who  was  exe- 
cuted a  victim  of  the  revolution.  As  the  son  of  a  schoolmaster, 
he  was  born  into  the  proletariat  also,  born  "ein  armer  Teufel." 

It  goes  without  saying  that  being  the  only  child  of  these  un- 
happy parents  Reitzel's  childhood  was  not  a  bright  one.  His 
father,  a  weak,  insignificant  village  schoolmaster,  believed  in  not 
sparing  the  rod,  and  by  this  method  he  spoiled  his  child,  inas- 
much as  he  bred  in  him  a  contempt  for  all  authority.  Further- 
more, he  taught  him  to  lie.  Reitzel  tells  how  he  was  willing  to 
tell  any  number  of  lies  to  escape  a  whipping,  not  for  fear  of  the 
physical  pain  (he  endured  far  greater  pain  at  the  hands  of  his 
companions  when  they  played  Indians  or  Spartans),  but  because 
of  the  great  depression  that  invariably  followed,  when  his  father 
would  be  sullen  and  silent,  his  mother  sick  from  the  excite- 
ment, and  he  sulky  and  stubborn  for  days  and  weeks  at  a  time. 
He  says,^  that  every  pleasure  of  his  youth  was  "mit  Priigeln 
gewiirzt." 

A  great  deal  of  sunshine,  however,  was  diffused  over  his 
youth  by  his  mother,  a  woman  of  fine  character,  who  like 
Goethe's  mother  did  a  great  deal  to  rouse  his  poetic  talent.  He 
draws  a  striking  picture  of  the  poor  consumptive  woman  who 
slaved  in  the  wretched  school-house,  when  he  tells  -  how  he  read 


^  Mein  Buck,  p.  290. 

'  Gesammelte  Schriften,  Vol.  I,  p.  2j. 


Robert  Reitzel  1 1 

the  Bible  stories  to  her  while  she  was  spinning.  When  he 
thought  that  she  was  in  the  slightest  degree  inattentive,  the  little 
Robert  would  become  furious,  but  she  would  readily  console  him 
by  telling  him  other  stories  about  the  characters  of  whom  he  had 
just  read.  The  children's  birthdays,  Easter,  and  the  other  festi- 
vals, which  stands  for  so  much  in  the  life  of  the  German  family, 
left  in  his  mind  also  many  pleasant  memories.  Hand  in  hand 
with  these  events  go  his  love  affairs  and  his  verses  in  his  earliest 
school  days.  At  one  time,  when  he  had  bought  with  his  small 
savings  busts  of  Shakespeare  and  Byron,  long  before  he  had  ever 
read  them,  a  teacher  asked  him  whether  he  wanted  to  become  a 
poet,  and  little  Robert  answered,  yes,  betraying  for  the  first  time 
his  dearest  ambition.  The  pedagog  gave  Reitzel  a  small  coin, 
with  the  advice  to  go  and  buy  a  rope !" 

In  the  Gymnasium  this  precocious,  self-willed  boy,  to  whom 
poetry  meant  more  than  his  dry  daily  lessons,^  proved  to  be  a 
trial  to  his  teachers,  and,  like  Gottfried  Keller,  he  was  expelled. 
However,  he  reached  the  university,  registering  for  history  and 
philosophy  at  Heidelberg.  As  the  son  of  a  poor  teacher,  the- 
ology was  practically  the  only  line  of  study  open  to  him,  stipends 
being  obtainable  only  by  students  of  divinity.  However,  theo- 
logia  sacra  sancta  occupied  him  but  little,  except  for  the  reading 
of  the  Bible,  and  this  he  read  as  poetry  rather  than  as  theology. 
He  read  in  addition  the  poets,  chiefly  the  romanticists,  such  as 
Heine,  Eichendorff,  and  Brentano,  and  wrote  much  verse  him- 
self. His  poems  of  this  period  are  not  on  the  glory  of  the  study 
of  theology,  but  on  love,  wine,  revolution,  and  freedom.  Truly, 
in  Reitzel's  case  the  boy  was  father  of  the  man,  for  to  the  end 
of  his  life  he  remained  the  lighthearted,  carefree  student  of  the 
Heidelberg  days,  enthusiastic  for  all  that  was  noble  and  beauti- 
ful, and  willing  at  all  times  to  prove  by  word  and  deed  his  faith- 
fulness to  his  ideals  of  freedom.  He  was  one  of  a  group  of  six 
students  who  met  regularly,  swearing  not  to  rest  until  Germany 


'  Mein  Buck,  pp.  1 16  ff . 

*  At  one  time  the  students  were  given  the  liberty  to  choose  their  own  sub- 
jects for  their  compositions,  and  Reitzel  chose  Die  Poesie  meines  Lebens. 
Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  171. 


12  Robert  Reitzel 

had  become  a  republic.  Twenty  years  later,  two  of  these  icono- 
clasts were  dead,  one  had  become  a  teacher  in  the  same  school  in 
which  he  had  slaved  as  a  boy,  another  a  pillar  of  the  orthodox 
church,  and  still  another  an  ambitious  man,  prominent  in  gov- 
ernment circles.  The  only  one  still  a  revolutionist  was  Robert 
Reitzel.^ 

It  was  quite  customary  in  those  days  for  young  men,  who, 
for  some  reason  or  other,  failed  to  establish  themselves  as  pro- 
fessional men  in  Germany,  and  whose  social  position  forbade 
their  doing  any  sort  of  manual  labor,  to  go  to  America  to  sur- 
vive or  perish.  Accordingly,  in  1870,  when  Reitzel's  financial 
resources  were  exhausted,  his  father  advised  him  to  go  to  Amer- 
ica. Reitzel  was  only  too  willing  to  do  so.  In  his  delightfully 
droll,  Ahentcuer  eines  Griinen,  he  tells  of  the  pleasures  and 
hardships  he  met  with  in  this  country.  Much  has  been  said 
about  the  hardships  of  the  "lateinische  Bauer"  in  America,  but 
much  harder  was  the  way  of  the  "lateinische  Vagabunden,"  or 
poet-tramps,  like  Robert  Reitzel  and  Martin  Drescher.  These 
university  bred  men  had  to  put  up  with  hunger,  the  hardest  and 
most  menial  labor,  the  persecution  of  the  police,  and  actual  im- 
prisonment, but  they  also  enjoyed  many  of  the  charms  of  the  free 
life  of  a  vagabond. 

"Ich  lobe  mir  das  Leben, 
Juhei !  als  Vagabund, 
Mich  driicken  keine  Sorgen ; 
Frei  bin  ich  alle  Stund'. 

Bei  Tage  zieh  ich  munter 
Des  Wegs  mit  Sang  und  Klang, 
Und  geht  die  Sonne  unter, 
So  wird  mir  auch  nicht  bang. 

Die  Erde  ist  mein  Lager, 
Der  Himmel  ist  mein  Dach, 
Und  mit  den  Voglein  werd'  ich 
Des  morgens  wieder  wach. 


'  Mem  Buck,  pp.  79  ff. 


Robert  Reitzel  1 3 

Und  bin  ich  audi  ein  Bettler 

In  diirftigem  Gewand, 

Doch  griiszt  niich  manches  Madchen 

Mit  Aug',  und  Mund,  und  Hand. 

Viel  Dank,  viel  Dank,  mein  Liebchen, 
Jetzt  bin  ich  auf  dem  Hund ; 
Doch  einst  besucht  dich  wieder 
Als  Prinz  der  Vagabund."** 

With   the   happy-go-lucky   spirit   of   Eichendorff's    Taiige- 
nichts,  Reitzel  met  all  the  bitter  realities  of  life  that  the  romantic 
hero  was  spared.     Never  did  his  sense  of  humor  forsake  him. 
During  the  days  when  he  was  tramping  along  the  roads  of  Penn- 
sylvania, he  made  a  jest  of  his  hardships  in  this  epigram:" 
"Und  klafft  die  Sohl'  vom  Schuhe  weit, 
Wenn  nur  der  Fuss  nicht  wund, 
1st  auch  zerfetzt  das  letzte  Kleid, 
Wenn  nur  das  Herz  gesund." 

It  was  one  of  the  most  comical  coincidences  imaginable  that 
led  this  youth  of  twenty-one  into  the  ministry.  A  few  months 
after  his  arrival  in  this  country,  Reitzel  was  tramping  in  Penn- 
sylvania with  two  companions  when  the  first  signs  of  winter 
compelled  them  to  look  for  some  sort  of  employment  for  the 
cold  months,  and  when  the  question  arose  as  to  which  city  they 
should  choose,  Reitzel  remembered  a  student  song: 
"Zu  Freiburg  lebt  und  tat  viel  Busz 
Der  Pfarrer  Carl  Pistorius. 

Dem  Tod  durchs  Rad  entging  Pistor, 
Er  schifift  sich  ein  nach  Baltimore." 

This  song  caused  the  three  tramps  to  select  Baltimore  for 
their  winter  quarters.  Reitzel  was  soon  separated  from  his  com- 
panions, and  went  begging  for  work  with  an  empty  stomach 
about  the  streets  of  Baltimore,  until  he  seriously  contemplated 

•  Gesammelte  IVerke,  Vol.  I,  p.  64. 
'  Gesammelte  Schriften,  Vol.  I,  p.  69. 


14  Robert  Reitzel 

suicide.  Suddenly,  one  day,  he  saw  on  a  churcli  a  sign  giving 
the  address  of  the  pastor,  "The  Reverend  Pister."  This  sign 
recalled  to  him  the  whim  which  had  led  him  to  Baltimore,  and 
with  grim  humor  he  knocked  at  the  pastor's  door.  The  maid 
on  seeing  the  tramp  tried  to  slam  the  door  in  his  face,  but  with 
the  desperation  of  hunger  he  resolutely  forced  his  way  into  the 
house,  and  into  his  career  as  a  clergyman.  For  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Pister,  after  feeding  the  starved  lad,  and  hearing  his  story, 
showed  him  clearly  that  the  logical  thing  for  him  to  do  was  to 
pass  an  examination  before  the  Board  of  the  German  Reformed 
Church,  and  to  take  charge  of  a  congregation.  The  details  are 
portrayed  humorously  in  Die  Ahenteuer  eines  Grilnen. 

Reitzel  in  1871  was  appointed  minister  of  the  German 
Reformed  Church  in  Washington.  About  a  year  later  he  mar- 
ried. 

Because  it  is  so  characteristic  of  him  I  shall  quote  here 
what  Reitzel  wrote  later  in  his  Ahenteuer  eines  Grunen  concern- 
ing this  important  step.  It  was,  of  course,  part  of  Reitzel's 
frank  honesty,  but  it  must  be  said  that  he  had  a  somewhat  un- 
.  pleasant  way  of  washing  his  linen  in  public  in  regard  to  his 
"Ehekrieg." 

".  .  .  Unhaltbar  war  meine  Stellung  namentlich  durch 
meine  Heirat  geworden. 

Das  war  aber  auch  ein  dummer  Streich,  den  ich  mit  meinem 
ganzen  Leben  statt  gut  nur  immer  schlimmer  und  diim- 
mer  machen  kann. 

"Ich  spreche  hier  nicht  in  Bezug  auf  die  Wahl,  die  ich  getrif- 
fen,  oder  die  Erfahrungen,  die  ich  gemacht  habe.  Aber  was  ich 
mir  zum  Vorwurf  mache  ist,  dass  ich  damals  schon  wissen 
konnte:  Du  bist  nicht  der  Mann,  der  das  Recht  hat  eine  Familie 
zu  griinden.  Es  gibt  Manner  die  in  der  Jugend  schon  wissen, 
die  es  in  alien  Knochen  fiihlen,  dass  sie  ihren  Weg  in  der  Welt 
machen  werden,  dass  sie  ihres  Gliickes  Schmiede  sind,  dass  sie 
dereinst  ebensowohl  Gesehafts-als  Hausbesitzer  sein  werden. 
Fiir  solche  Manner  ist  es  Pflicht,  Vorteil  und  Genuss  zu  hei- 
raten.  Es  gibt  aber  auch  junge  Menschen,  welchen  das  Vag- 
abundentum  in  Fleisch  und  Blut  steckt,  die  es  mit  achtzehn  Jah- 


Robert  Reitzel  15 

ren  schon  wissen  konnen,  dass  sie  nie  einen  eigenen  werd  besitzen 
werden,  dass  die  Freuden  der  Familie  fiir  sie  stets  sehr  proble- 
matischer  Natur  sein  werden,  da  sie  niemals  ordentlich  dafitr  be- 
zahlen  werden  konnen,  ja,  die  ausserdem  schon  aus  Erfahrung 
wissen,  dass  ihnen  keine  Gewohnheitsakkommodation,  welche 
man  in  der  Liebe  Treue  nennt,  eine  absolute  Unmoglichkeit  ist, 
fiir  solche  Menschen  ist  das  Heiraten  geradezu  ein  Verbrechen." 
In  this  work  as  pastor  no  one  could  have  been  more  sincere 
than  Reitzel,  if  sincere  is  not  taken  to  mean  orthodox.  He  had 
vague  dreams  of  bringing  together  religion  and  science,  of  initi- 
ating a  reformation  of  the  Church  on  a  large  scale,  of  becoming 
a  Luther  or  Calvin  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  it  goes  with- 
out saying  that  he  became  a  martyr  to  his  cause.  He  seems  to 
have  met  with  so  many  discouraging  weaknesses  in  the  people 
who  called  themselves  Christians  that  he  despaired  wholly  of  the 
traditional  forms  of  Christianity.  He  tells  us  later  on,  that  he 
considers  Christianity  to  have  erred  ^  so  far  from  its  tenets,  that 
it  can  find  no  better  criticism  than  the  Bible  itself.  As  an  ex- 
ample he  quotes  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  On  one  occa- 
sion at  Christmas  time,  when  the  dreadful  condition  of  the  poor 
was  impressed  upon  his  mind  most  forcibly,  he  wrote  bitterly:^ 

"Soil  noch  immer  das  Marchen  gelten: 
Dulden  das  Leid 
Unserer  Zeit 
Fiir  Triumphe  in  andern  Welten?" 

Another  phase  of  his  experiences  we  see  in  his  gripping 
sketch,  Der  Kidtus  des  Teufels,^^  in  which  he  shows  how  the 
children  of  the  world  often  show  more  real  Christianity  than  the 
professed  Christians.  His  own  youth  had  led  him  to  think  that 
free  development  was  better  for  children  than  baptism  and  other 
ceremonies,  "Der  Kirche  alte  Zauberlist."  What  he  said,  how- 
ever, was  the  sincere  expression  of  his  ideas  derived  from  his  life 
as  a  minister. 


^  Mein  Buck,  p.  211. 
*  Mein  Buck,  p.  425. 
*•  Mein  Buck,  p.  105. 


1 6  Robert  Reitzel 

It  is  true,  he  had  begun  without  either  orthodox  or  hetero- 
dox convictions,  but  he  worked  along  steadily  in  a  straight  line 
toward  freedom — freedom  from  all  that  he  thought  hampered 
the  development  of  the  human  spirit. ^^ 

"Ohne  Gott  und  ohne  Himmel, 
Ohne  Opfer  und  Gebet, 
Ohne  korperlose  Geister, 
Deren  Wesen  uns  umweht, 
Sag,  was  bleibt  uns  denn  auf  Erden? 
Sind  wir  trostlos  nicht  und  arm — 
Nein,  es  halt  die  holde  Liebe 
Unsre  Herzen  f  roh  und  warm ! 
Liebe  nur  heisst  unser  Dogma 
Liebe  sei  von  uns  gelehrt — 
Erd'  und  Sonne,  Meer  und  Sterne 
Sind  dem  Liebenden  verklart. 
Das  ist  unsre  Offenbarung, 
Wenn  du  in  ein  Aug  geschaut, 
Draus  ein  Herz  entgegenleuchtet. 
Das  in  Liebe  dir  vertraut. 
Gott  und  Teufel,  Holl'  und  Himmel — 
Seien  sie  der  Andern  Lohn, 
Seien  sie  der  Andern  Schrecken— 
Lieb'  ist  unsre  Religion!" 

As  in  the  case  of  Ibsen's  Brand,  his  congregation  followed 
him  part  of  the  way — they  cut  loose  from  the  Synod  and 
founded  a  free  congregation — but  part  of  the  way  only.  One 
day  the  Church  Board  put  the  alternative  to  the  pastor  either  of 
returning  to  more  orthodox  views,  or  of  leaving  his  well-paid 
post  and  going  forth  with  his  young  wife  and  child  to  seek 
another  occupation.  Reitzel  bravely  chose  the  latter  course.  One 
of  his  poems  will  perhaps  give  the  best  idea  of  his  struggles  for 
his  ideal  freedom  during  the  four  years  of  his  life  as  pastor: 


"  Gesammelte  Schriften,  Vol.  II,  p.  13. 


Robert  Reitzel  17 

"Schon  langst  ist  der  Stundenzeiger 
tJber  die  Zwolfe  geriickt, 
Noch  immer  sitzt  Einer  im  Pfarrhaus 
tJber  die  Biicher  gebiickt. 
Und  sitzt  und  sinnt  und  griibelt, 
Was  wohl  die  Wahrheit  sei, 
Und  wird  nicht  los  den  Gedanken: 
O  war'  ich  nocli  einmal  f rei ! 

Wie  torichte  Miicken  schvvarmen 

Rings  um  das  Lampenlicht 

Erinnerungssiisse  Gestalten, 

Ach!  und  er  verscheucht  sie  nicht. 

Nur  manchmal  fliistert  er  leise 

Und  faltet  die  Hande  dabei: 

O  fiihre  uns  nicht  in  Versuchung! 

O  war'  ich  noch  einmal  f  rei ! 

Der  sitzt  und  schreibt  seine  Predigt 

Von  dem  eriosenden  Christ, 

Und  weiss  doch,  dass  er  selber 

Nicht  mehr  zu  erlosen  ist."^- 

Reitzel  was  always  proud  of  his  attitude  at  this  period.  His 
spirit  had  matured  during  these  struggles,  and  ever  afterwards 
he  never  hesitated  to  speak  or  w-rite  the  truth  as  he  saw  it,  fear- 
less of  what  the  consequences  might  be.  He  adds:^^  "Ich  habe 
doch  immer  dieselben  Drachen  bekampft,  die  Liige,  die  Heu- 
chelei,  die  Ungerechtigkeit,  und  mein  Riickhalt,  die  Burg,  wel- 
che  ich  verteidigte,  der  Wundertrank,  welcher  mich  erfrischte, 
war  immer  die  Huttensche  Devise:  'Und  sollt  es  brechen  vor 
dem  End',  nie  werd'  ich  von  der  Wahrheit  lassen !'  " 

His  enthusiasm,  his  love  of  truth  and  freedom,  although 
they  had  made  difficulties  for  him  in  the  church,  were  appreciated 


Gesammelte  Schriftcn,  Vol.  II,  p.  13. 
Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  146. 


i8  Robert  Reitzel 

in  other  circles.  For  the  next  years  he  travelled  through  most 
of  the  States  of  the  Union  as  a  lecturer  on  literary  and  social 
topics,  and  his  fiery  eloquence  led  many  to  regard  him  as  the 
ablest  German- American  speaker.  ^^  To  enable  him  to  extend 
his  influence,  his  friends  in  Detroit  founded  for  him  in  1884  a 
paper,  which  Reitzel  edited  until  his  death  in  1898.  In  editing 
this  paper  Reitzel  found  his  real  calling. 

In  naming  his  paper  Der  arme  Teufel,  Reitzel  had  in  mind 
partly  men  like  Feuerbach,  Schiller,  Lessing,  Faraday,  and 
others,  who  were  contemned  by  many  of  their  fellow  men  as 
"arme  Teufel,"  but  especially  a  chance  acquaintance  of  his,  a 
Norwegian  tramp,  who  had  lost  his  wife  after  a  year  of  the 
greatest  happiness,  and  then  had  become  a  vagabond,  traveling 
over  the  entire  world  and  fighting  for  freedom  whenever  oppor- 
tunity offered,  as  in  the  revolution  of  '48  and  in  our  own  Civil 
War.  This  man  had  not  slept  in  a  bed  for  years,  but  he  told 
Reitzel  that  when  he  lay  under  a  tree  at  night  and  saw  the  stars 
shining  and  heard  the  winds  blowing,  he  felt  that  he  was  the 
happiest  of  men,  free  from  all  the  worries  that  troubled  the  set- 
tled citizen.  This  man  embodied  two  qualities  that  were  to  be 
essential  in  Reitzel's  paper;  independence  of  all  influences  that 
might  hamper  his  freedom  of  judgment,  and  ideal  love  of  liberty, 
ready  to  seek  expression  in  action.  ^^ 

Four  short  stanzas  give  us  the  whole  man  Reitzel.  his  pro- 
gramme, all  that  Der  arme  Teufel  stood  for: 

"Mir  bleibe  fern  der  Unkenchor  der  Heuchler, 
M\  bleibe  fern  wer  lachelt  stets  und  witzelt, 
Mir  bleibe  fern,  wen  nur  Gemeines  kitzelt, 
Mir  bleiben  fern  die  Hiindler  und  die  Schmeichler. 

Ich  lieb'  sie  nicht,  die  stets  bedachtig  Weisen, 
Und  nicht,  die  stets  das  Rosz  des  Pathos  reiten, 
Und  nicht,  die  jammern  stets  von  schlechten  Zeiten, 
Und  nicht,  die  stets  im  selben  Ringe  kreisen. 


Cf.  Edna  Fern's  enthusiastic  report,  Werckshagen,  p.  13. 
Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  9. 


Robert  Reitzel  ly 

Ich  lob'  mir  leichte,  lustige  Gesellen, 

Die  geriie  sind  wo  voile  Becher  winken, 

Die  gern  der  Schonheit  an  dem  Busen  sinken ; 

Doch  die  auch,  wenn  zum  Kampf  die  Horner  gellen, 

Begreifen  unsrer  Zeit  gewaltiges  Ringen, 
Im  Herzen  heil'gen  Zornes  Springquell  tragen, 
Der  Freiheit  ihre  Schlachten  helfen  schlagen — 
Und  kostlich  Herzblut  ihr  zum  Opfer  bringen."  ^^ 

A  short  poem  that  Martin  Drescher  loves  to  quote  and 
which  he  thinks  affords  a  deep  insight  into  the  character  of 
Reitzel  is  the  following :^'^ 

"Von  den  zwei  Herzen  in  meiner  Brust 
Sagt  das  eine:  Vertragen! 
Das  ist  doch  nur  Bubenlust, 
Sich  um  nichts  zu  schlas:en. 


'fe^ 


Und  das  andre  frohlich  geigt 
Noch  im  nacht'gen  Grauen: 
Wenn  sich  dir  was  Schlechtes  zeigt, 
Gilt  es  drauf  zu  hauen." 

About  one-half  of  the  paper  was  filled  with  original  contribu- 
tions, most  of  them  written  by  Reitzel  himself.  Some  of  his  col- 
laborators were:  Bruno  Wille,  John  Henry  Mackay,  Karl  Hen- 
ckel,  Michael  Georg  Conrad,  and  Karl  Heinzen.  The  rest  of 
the  paper  Reitzel  filled  with  reprints  from  modern  German 
writers,  such  as  Keller,  Dehmel,  and  others.  In  this  manner, 
and  also  by  his  wonderfully  charming  criticisms  of  men  like 
Goethe,  Uhland,  Seume,  Heine,  Boerne,  Reuter,  Andersen,  and 
others,  Reitzel  educated  the  German-Americans.     But  not  only 


^^  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  9.  The  last  stanza  was  selected  by 
Martin  Drescher  as  motto  to  Reitzel's  poems  in  the  Reitzelbiich.  Drescher'.s 
name  does  not  appear  in  this  collection  that  he  compiled  as  a  tribute  to  his 
friend,  only  the  simple  dedication,  "Einem  Vielgeliebten  zum  Gedachtnis." 

"  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  24. 


20  Robert  Reitzel 

Germans,  also  Hawthorne,  Whitman,  Jerome,  and  especially 
Shakespeare,  were  celebrated  by  him  in  most  original  apprecia- 
tions. In  his  capacity  of  critic,  a  comparison  to  Karl  Heinzen, 
another  German-American  journalist,  enables  one  to  understand 
more  clearly  Reitzel's  position.  Heinzen's  hobby  was  the  materi- 
alistic philosophy ;  his  stand  is  summarized  in  a  recent  disserta- 
tion:^^ "All  poets  who  favor  the  idealistic  philosophy  are  con- 
demned as  obstructing  the  way  to  truth  and  freedom.  Similarly 
all  Christian  poets,  'the  stand-patters,'  the  conser\^atives,  share 
the  same  fate.  ...  In  fact,  only  the  propagandist  has  a  right 
to  literary  activity.  .  .  .  'All  the  great  .  .  .  literary  men 
who  have  not  comprehended  and  represented  the  rights  of  all 
men,  are  in  my  eyes,  in  spite  of  their  distinctions,  stupid,  abso- 
lutely stupid,  more  stupid  than  the  most  stupid  school  boy!' 
.  .  .  A  poet  must  be  a  man  in  the  first  place,  i.  e.,  he  must  be 
radical,  consistent,  democratic,  etc.  If  he  does  not  fulfill  this  re- 
quirement he  has  thereby  lost  all  claim  to  consideration  as  a 
poet !"  Perhaps  these  views  are  typical  of  what  is  generally  ex- 
pressed by  socialists  and  labor  leaders  in  regard  to  poetry,  but 
Reitzel  was  a  man  of  different  stamp.  To  quote  his  own  words: 
"I  am  never  more  proud  of  being  a  German  than  when  I  recall 
that  in  no  country  of  the  world  the  literary  and  scientific  achieve- 
ments of  other  nations  are  recognized  more  willingly  and  with 
less  envy  than  among  the  cultured  classes  of  Germany. "^^  His 
ambition  was  to  bring  the  poets  near  the  hearts  of  all  the  people. 
It  might  be  said,  though,  that  he  found  this  to  be  a  very  hard 
task,  indeed  among  the  German-Americans,  whom  he  considered 
to  be  falling  away  from  their  language  and  their  ideals  very 
rapidly  in  their  endeavors  to  become  rich  as  quickly  as  possible. 
Reitzel  felt  very  sharply  that  he  was  "heimatlos"  among  a  people 
to  whom  the  things  that  were  nearest  and  dearest  to  his  heart 
meant  nothing.  Very  bitterly  he  complains  of  the  shallowness 
and  the  truckling  before  the  money  powers  of  the  German- 
American  press,  but 


"  Schinnerer,  Karl  Heinzen  as  a  Literary  Critic,  pp.  72  ff. 
^*Mein  Buck,  pp.  181  ff. 


Robert  Reitzel  21 

"Nur  wenn's  urn's  Bier  geht — 
Ritter  und  Knapp — 
Da  gehn  sie  einig 
Vom  Thema  nicht  ab."-*^ 

Unlike  many  other  lovers  of  literature  and  art,  he  did  not 
stand  aloof  from  the  low  and  ugly.  His  warm  heart  drew  him 
to  all  oppressed.  He  broke  lances  for  all  those  who  have 
been  traditionally  maligned  by  the  self-righteous,  e.  g.,  Judas, 
Ahasuerus,  and  the  Jews  in  general.-^  He  spoke  sympathetically 
for  those  unfortunates  whom  all  the  world  despises  and  scorns, 
and  this  many  years  before  the  appearance  of  Shaw's  Mrs.  War- 
ren's Profession.^-     He  hated  every  kind  of  Pharisee. 

He  regarded  the  satisfied  bourgeois  who  favored  the  status 
quo  that  it  might  enable  him  to  continue  in  "his  filthy  money 
making,"  and  whose  religion  he  described  as  being  "Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that 
are  God's,  so  that  we  can  keep  the  rest  for  ourselves" — these  he 
regarded  as  the  worst  enemies  of  society.-^  In  seeking  liberty 
for  the  oppressed  working  classes,  he  followed  Schiller,  whom 
he  quotes  as  saying:  "Hatte  jeder  freigesinnte  Kopf  geschwie- 
gen,  so  ware  nie  ein  Schritt  zur  Verbesserung  geschehen." 

Reitzel  became  a  socialist,  even  an  anarchist,  but  his  nature 
would  not  allow  him  to  become  the  follower  of  any  dogmatic 
creed.  He  says  -^  that  as  the  Christians  had  driven  him  to  for- 
sake Christianity,  so  the  socialists  spoiled  socialism  for  him,  and 
the  anarchists,  anarchism.  But  any  injustice  aroused  him  to 
action.  At  the  time  when  popular  opinion  found  it  impossible  to 
believe  that  the  death  sentence  against  the  men  involved  in  the 
Haymarket  Affair  would  be  carried  out,  Reitzel  saw  the  "lust 
for  blood  of  the  monster  capitalism, "^^  and  tried  to  arouse  the 


'  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  30. 

^  Mein  Buck,  pp.  161  ff. 

'  Mein  Buck,  pp.  267  ff. 

'  Mein  Buck,  pp.  167  ff. 

'  Mein  Buck,  p.  29. 

'  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  g6  ff. 


22  Robert  Reitzel 

workingmen  to  action  to  save  their  leaders  from  the  gallows.  But 
in  spite  of  all  that  he  could  do,  four  of  the  men  were  hanged. 
The  death  of  these  men  he  thought  would  rouse  the  working- 
men  to  action  at  last,  and  so  he  wrote  in  1887,  in  the  first  number 
of  the  new  Wajfengang,  as  he  called  his  Jahrg'dnge: 

"Was  f rommen  bei  zertretnen  Saaten 
Der   Sehnsucht   friedliche  Schalmeien? 
Wir  wollen  statt  der  Tranen  Taten, 
Und  Blut  statt  Wein." 

But  the  people  to  whom  he  appealed  were  too  terrified  to  do 
anything,  and  the  social  order  went  on  as  before.  For  the  new 
year,  1888,  Reitzel  wrote  grimly: 

"Es  war  wie  immer, 
Es  blieb  beim  Alten, 
Wir  schauten  zu 
Recht  brav  gehalten. 

Wir  hatten  Mut 
Im  Wirtshausorden, 
Wir  schauten  zu 
Wie  andere  morden. 

Wir  sagten  uns  selber 
Es  musz  so  sein, 
Und  tranken  grimmig 
Unseren  Wein. 

Wir  haben  dem  Volk 
Recht  brav  geraten, 
Jedoch  der  Henker 
Verzeichnet  die  Taten." 

Reitzel  the  fighter  very  often  became  Reitzel  the  lover — 
the  two  for  him  were  the  chief  expressions  of  his  character: 


Robert  Reitsel  23 

"Wenn  ich  auf  dem  Bett  der  Liebe 
Wollustheiszen  Sieg  errungen, 
1st  mir  doch  der  Schwerter  Klirren 
Immer  noch  im  Ohr  erklungen. 

Denn  der  Freie  nur  kann  lieben, 
Und  es  war  zu  alien  Zeiten: 
Willst  du  eigne  Wage  gehen, 
Muszt  du  urn  die  Freiheit  streiten. 

Wenn  mich  in  dem  Kampfgewiihle 
Totlich  scharfe  Hiebe  trafen, 
War  mein  letzter  Frohgedanke: 
Bei  der  Liebe  darfst  du  schlafen."-^ 

Love  played  a  great  part  in  Reitzel's  life.  Love  to  him  did 
not  mean  life-long  faithfulness,  but  love  with  all  his  heart.  As 
to  the  place  it  should  occupy  in  a  man's  life,  he  said  that  when 
the  half-gods  of  love  for  the  woman  go,  the  gods  of  love  for 
mankind  arrive.     "Humanity  is  your  Dulcinea."^"^ 

It  is  very  interesting  to  note  traces  of  Heine  and  Nietzsche 
in  these  poems,  showing  how  he  had  absorbed  the  spirit  of  these 
men  (in  fact  the  entire  heritage  left  by  the  German  poets  and 
thinkers  of  centuries  was  his)  and  also  how  in  his  style  he  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  writers  of  his  own  day. 

"Als  ich  Abschied  nahm  in  Liebe, 
Stromten  Tranen  in  die  Kiisse — 
Bittersitsse  letzte  Kiisse — 
Doch  dem  Herzen  blieb  die  Hoffnung. 

Als  ich  Abschied  nahm  in  Ziirnen, 
Gosz  sich  von  den  matten  Augen 
Heisz  der  Tranenquell  zum  Herzen, 
Und  mein  Herze  wollte  brechen." 


**  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  31. 
"  Mein  Buch,  p.  30. 


24  Robert  Reitzel 

"Der  Friihling  kam,  wie  fand  er  mich? 
Mit  ein  paar  Sonnenstrahlen, 
Mit  einem  Schimmer,  der  griinlich  strich 
tJber  die  Graser,  die  fahlen. 

Mit  ein  paar  Blattern  am  diirren  Baum — 
Wie  sie  im  Friihhauch  beben ! 
Mit  ein  paar  Blumen,  den  Jugendtraum 
In  einer  Gruft  zu  verleben. 

Der  Friihling  kam — ob  seiner  Pracht, 
Musst  ich  ein  Lacheln  heucheln — 
Ziindet  ein  Licht  in  oder  Nacht, 
Einem  Blinden  zu  Schmeicheln. 

Borstig  die  Zeit  voriiberkroch, 
Und  die  Vampyre  saugen. 
Erst  als  ich  an  den  Syringen  roch, 
Brannten  mir  plotzlich  die  Augen."^^ 

The  second  poem  takes  us  to  his  last  years,  the  years  spent 
in  bed  with  a  lame  back.  It  was  very  hard  for  Reitzel,  the  man 
of  action,  to  be  tied  down  helpless.-^  But  only  his  body  could  be 
tied  down;  his  unconquerable  soul  was  free.  From  his  "Lugins- 
land,"  as  he  called  his  couch,  which  was  set  up  before  a  window 
from  which  he  could  look  on  the  life  of  the  street  and  across 
some  fields,  he  sent  many  an  essay  and  many  a  poem  out  into  the 
world  to  the  great  joy  of  his  many  friends. 


^In  the  Gesammelte  IVcrkc  his  poems  are  collected  in  the  first  part  of 
the  second  volume. 

°'  It  was  half  a  year  before  his  death  that  Reitzel  became  acquainted  with 
Martin  Drescher,  and  the  two  formed  a  very  firm  friendship.  Every  night 
for  half  a  year  Drescher  spent  at  his  bedside.  In  the  course  of  these  months 
the  two  became  intimately  acquainted,  and  Reitzel  wished  that  Martin  Dre- 
scher continue  Der  arme  Teufel.  The  latter  did  this  very  ably  for  two 
years,  until  finally  unfortunate  financial  conditions  put  an  end  to  the  publica- 
tion.— Reitzel  was  already  at  the  brink  of  the  grave  when  Drescher  came  to 
Detroit,  but  he  seldom  thought  of  death.  At  one  time,  and  at  one  time  onlj-, 
his  friend  tells  that  he  spoke  of  death,  but  without  the  least  show  of  fear. 
He  said,  that  death  appeared  to  him  like  a  black  curtain  from  behind  which 
a  satyr  showed  his  laughing  face. — When  after  his  death  an  autopsy  was  held, 
it  was  found  that  practically  all  his  organs  were  diseased,  his  lungs,  his 
kidneys,  his  liver,  all  but  his  heart.  In  his  active  life  he  had  worn  himself 
out  completely,  only  his  heart  was  still  strong  and  whole  I 


Robert  Reitsel  25 

"Ihr  wiszt  es,  ich  bin  gefangen 
In  meinem  engtrauten  Zelt, 
Doch  kann  ich  mit  Armen  erlangen 
Die  ganze  weite  Welt. 

Ich  mocht  mich  in  Frieden  bescheiden 

Seit  ich  meine  Schwingen  verlor, 

Doch  mein  Bhit,  mein  Bhit  will's  nicht  leiden, 

Das  stromt  noch  so  heisz  wie  zuvor." 

Of  course,  pessimistic  moments  were  not  lacking: 

"Ich  wollte  es  war'  zu  Ende, 
Das  eklige  Puppenspiel, 
Wenn  man  die  Drahte  gesehen, 
Dann  wiegt  der  Spasz  nicht  viel."^*^ 

But  on  the  whole  he  was  very  cheerful.  As  long  as  there 
was  so  much  of  the  beautiful  in  the  world  for  him  to  see  and  to 
read  and  so  many  dear  friends  to  visit  him,  there  was  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  be  glad  to  live.  Whenever  a  number  of  friends 
visited  him  the  sick-room  became  the  scene  of  a  joyous  festival, 
at  which  wine  and  song  rejoiced  the  hearts  of  the  poet  and  his 
visitors.  As  to  his  life  and  its  achievement,  however,  Reitzel 
was  rather  pessimistic.  All  his  fighting  for  ideals,  his  love,  his 
great  dreams  for  humanity,  seemed  to  him  to  have  exerted  but 
little  influence  on  others. 

A  deeply  stirring,  somber  funeral  dirge  is  his  last  message 
to  the  world  in  his  poem  Zuletzt}'^ 

"Das  Schlimmste,  was  dem  Menschen  aufgehoben, 
1st  nicht  die  Not  und  nicht  der  Tod. — 
Es  war  dein  Traum, 
Dass  du  der  Sonne  gleichen  wolltest, 
Die  ihre  Glut  ausstrahlt  verschwenderisch  ur*-'  ohne  Riickhalt. 


^  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  46. 
"  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  48. 


26  Robert  Reitzel 

Und  Wenn  der  Sonne  nicht,  so  doch  der  Blume, 
Die  jedem  Hauch  ihr  Herz  eroflfnet 
Und  ihren  Duft  verstreut. 
Doch  bleibt  dir  nichts  vom  reichen  Erbteil, 
Wenn  in  den  Schatten  stirbt  der  Tag 
Und  Blatt  auf  Blatt  in  welker  Not  verblasst. 
In  deinen  letzten  Stunden  einsam. 
Streckst  du  vergebens  deine  Arme 
Nach  Liebe  aus, 

Der  du  ein  Leben  lang  geopfert. 
Es  mag  die  Treue  stehn  an  deinem  Lager, 
Die,  sich  zum  Lohn,  ausharret  bis  zuletzt, 
Und  auch  die  Reue,  die  sich  gramt, 
Dass  ihr  das  Heucheln  nicht  gehngt; 
Der  Strauss,  den  man  dem  miiden  Kampfer  schickt, 
Und  auch  ein  Becher  mit  dem  edlen  Trank, 
Der  dir  ein  letztes  Lacheln  auf  die  Lippen  lockt. 
Doch  was  dir  vorgeschwebt  als  letzte  Labung 
In  Stunden,  da  das  Gliick — 
Das  lachende,  kiissende  Gluck — 
Den  Tod  dich  denken  Hess  mit  Lust, 
Sie  wird  dir  nicht  gereicht. 
Nur  hinter  den  geschlossnen  Lidern 
Siehst  du  in  weiter  Feme  Sterne  bhnken, 
GeHebte  Augen,  die  von  Tranen  feucht, 
Als  ob  sie  jetzt  die  Botschaft  schon  vernommen. 
Und  naher  tritt  mit  der  gesenkten  Fackel 
Die  sanfte  Schwermut,  die  den  Knaben  schon, 
Wenn  ihm  das  Herz  in  Schluchzen  brechen  woHte 
In  Schlaf  gewiegt, 

Und  fliistert  dir  ins  Herz  das  kiihle  Wort, 
Das  aller  Weisheit  letzter  Trost, 
'  Dass  man  die  Sterne  nicht  begehrt, 
Und  dass  man  arm  dahinfahrt,  wie  man  kam." 

According  to  a  statement  by  his  physician,  Reitzel's  death 
was  due  to  tuberculosis,  a  predisposition  for  which  he  had  in- 


Robert  Reitsel  27 

herited  from  his  mother.  His  disease  attacked  the  spine,  caus- 
ing his  lower  Hmbs  to  be  lamed. 

In  one  of  his  last  years  Reitzel  wrote  a  dream  about  his 
death.  His  corpse  was  placed  on  two  flat-boats  loaded  with 
inflammable  material.  At  dusk  the  funeral  pyre  was  lighted 
and  floated  slowly  away  from  the  shore  across  the  quiet  waters 
of  Lake  Orion  to  the  accompaniment  of  "Integer  Vitae,"  sung 
by  his  friends  in  boats  that  drifted  in  the  wake  of  the  larger 
boats  bearing  his  body.  As  soon  as  his  body  had  been  con- 
sumed by  the  flames  his  friends  returned  to  the  summer  house 
and  celebrated  his  memory  over  the  wine  cups. 

Tho  Reitzel  did  not  meet  his  death  at  Lake  Orion,  yet  his 
body  was  cremated  and  his  friends  honored  his  memory  in  the 
manner  he  had  wished.  In  poems  written  to  him  we  find 
frequent  allusions  to  his  dream  of  his  funeral. 

"Wir  konnen  keinen  Kranz  aufs  Grab  dir  legen, 
Wie  wackre  Freunde  es  am  Sterbetage 
Geliebter  Menschen  gern  zu  halten  pflegen. 
Wir  wollen  nicht  in  triiber,  dumpfer  Klage 
Dem  iibergrossen  Schmerze  Worte  geben; 
Die  Jammernden  sind  immer  feig  und  zage. 
Wir  wollen  frisch  die  vollen  Glaser  heben, 
Den  ersten  Trunk  dem  stillen  Freunde  weihn, 
Dann  aber  trinken  auf  das  laute  Leben : 
Auf  unser  eignes  Bliihen  und  Gedeihn, 
Auf  unser  Gliick  in  dieser  bunten  Welt — 
Und  wieder  soil  der  letzte  Trinkspruch  sein : 
Hurrah,  dem  nachsten,  der  im  Kampfe  fallt!" 

— Martin  Drescher. 

"Der  Friihling  kam.     Du  sahst  es  kaum. 
Du  harrtest  wunschlos  ihm  entgegen 
Und  ahntest  nicht,  dass  leises  Regen 
Beffinnt  an  deiner  Wiese  Saum. 


28  Robert  Reitzel 

Du  hortest  nur  noch  wie  im  Traum 
Den  Lenzsturm  durch  die  Lande  fegen, 
Mit  Flammenblitz  des  Friihlings  Segen 
Herniederspriihn   in  Weltenraum. 
Und  es  ist  recht  so.     Lenzesbeben 
Das  stand  dir  nimmer  nach  dem  Sinn, 
Und  deiner  Seele  spate  Ruh 
Mit  tausend  Oualen  kauftest  du. 
In   Flammenzeichen  schrieb  dein   Leben, 
Und  so  in  Flammen  gehst  du  hin." 

— Edna  Fern. 


CHAPTER  II 


HISTORY  OF      DER  ARME  TEUFEL 


On  December  6,  1884,  the  first  number  of  Der  arme 
Teufel  appeared.  In  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of  the  first 
page,  Reitzel's  dashing  poem,  Fiir  Freund  und  Feind,  quoted 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  announced  the  program  of  the  paper. 
Robert  Reitzel  would  fight  to  the  last  hypocrisy,  philistinism, 
cringing  cowardice,  conservative  smugness,  tyranny  in  all  its 
forms,  on  the  other  hand  standing  for  a  yea-saying  philosophy 
of  life,  enjoyment  of  all  beauty,  and  a  willingness  to  lay  down 
his  life  in  the  fight  for  liberty.  Dcr  arme  Tciifcl  promised  not 
to  do  any  pussy- footing,  but  always  to  call, a  spade  a  spade.  In 
this  respect  the  words  of  Mirza  Schaff  y  were  to  be  his  motto : 

"Leicht  schartig  sagt  man  werden  scharfe  Messer, 
Doch  schneidet  man  darum  mit  stumpfen  besser?" 

In  the  eight  pages  are  to  be  found  editorials  and  essays 
from  Reitzel's  pen,  mostly  on  literary  subjects,  articles  by  vari- 
ous contributors,  two  pages  of  advertising,  and  several  an- 
nouncements, typical  among  them  the  one  stating  that  no  ad- 
vertisements of  lotteries,  patent  medicines,  and  other  frauds 
will  ever  be  printed  in  this  paper,  a  promise  that  was  scrupu- 
lously kept  as  long  as  the  paper  existed.  Reitzel  encourages 
advertisers  by  telling  them  that  owing  to  its  originality  the 
paper's  circulation  would  be  far  greater  than  the  number  of 
subscribers  would  seem  to  indicate.  The  price  of  the  paper  was 
two  dollars  and  a  half  a  year  (five  cents  a  copy). 

The  paper  was  launched  with  great  promises,  and  they  were 
also  fulfilled.  To  the  last  Reitzel  stood  by  his  ship;  not  even  a 
four  years'  mattress  grave  could  dampen  his  enthusiasm ;  he 
did  not  give  up  in  the  very  grip  of  death.  "Noch  lebt  der  arme 
Teufel"  was  the  first  line  of  an  article  in  the  number  published 
a  few  days  before  his  death. 

(29) 


30  Robert  Reitzel 

The  first  issue  mentions  the  hoisting  in  Chicago  of  the 
black  flag,  the  symbol  of  the  starving  proletariat,  a  bit  of  news 
which  Reitzel  glossed  Mene  Tekel.  For  this  very  Chicago  prole- 
tariat Reitzel  was  to  break  many  lances;  the  stirring  events  of 
'86  on  the  Chicago  Haymarket  cast  their  shadows  before  them 
and  for  years  after  them  in  the  columns  of  Reitzel's  paper. 

But  Reitzel  never  gave  the  impression  of  taking  himself 
and  his  lifework  too  seriously.  In  the  eyes  of  this  big  curly 
headed  boy  there  lurked  the  love  of  fun  of  the  student,  an 
irrepressible  humor  that  nothing  could  crush.  A  biirschi- 
koser  Ton  runs  thru  all  his  editorial  announcements  and  his 
Briefkasten,  a  column  in  which  the  editor  answered  his  cor- 
respondents. This  latter  column  contains  in  a  very  high  degree 
the  different  types  of  humor  that  have  made  famous  so-called 
"colyumnists"  on  large  dailies.  Reitzel  prints  what  Mr.  Taylor, 
of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  calls  "our  esteemed  contemporaries," 
that  is,  curiosities  from  exchanges,  for  example,  from  an  article 
against  cremation  the  argument  that  if  a  man  had  his  wife 
cremated  instead  of  buried,  it  would  be  impossible  to  prove 
that  he  had  not  poisoned  her!  Everybody  enjoys  the  news  of 
a  marriage  of  a  couple  with  interesting  names,  thus  Reitzel 
quotes  Heine  when  he  reads  of  a  match  between  Teufel  and 
Engel  in  Cleveland. 

"Die  Engel,  die  nennen  es  Himmelsfreud, 
Die  Teufel,  die  nennen  es  Hollenleid, 
Die  Menschen,  die  nennen  es  Liebe!" 

From  a  Milwaukee  paper  he  prints  an  advertisement  of  a 
man  desiring  a  wife,  a  good  housekeeper,  pretty,  etc.,  who  also 
possesses  "die  notige  Lebenswarme.''  "Dem  Manne  sollte  ge- 
holfen  werden,"  remarks  Reitzel. 

Another  favorite  trick  of  Reitzel's  was  to  use  abbreviations 
for  well-known  words,  especially  in  the  names  of  his  correspond- 
ents. Dr.  Richter,  of  St.  Louis,  who  is  small  in  stature,  was 
called  "klein  Erchen,"  printed  with  a  small  German  r.  He 
spoke  of  Milwaukee  as  "Deutsch-Athen."  In  original  humorous 
expressions  he  was  inexhaustible. 


Robert  Reitzel  31 

A  little  side  light  on  the  German-American  press  is  found 
in  the  announcements  that  the  reader  need  never  fear  to  run 
into  a  boost  (Puff)  for  some  saloon  when  reading"  a  column 
beginning  perhaps  with  the  news  of  another  revolution  in  Paris. 
nor  that  the  reading  matter  would  ever  be  interrupted  by  highly 
interesting  notices  about  Dr.  August  Koenig's  bronchial  tea. 
For  many  weeks  the  following  is  found  in  the  Arme  Teufel : 
*'Avis  aux  visiteurs :  Herrenbesuche  sind  auf  der  Office  des  A,  T. 
immer  willkommen,  ausgenommen  Mittwoch  und  Donnerstag, 
Freitag  erst  nach  elf  Uhr  vomiittags;  Damen  und  auswartige 
Freunde  jederzeit.  Zugleich  erinnern  wir  nochmals  daran,  dasz 
fiir  bediirftige  arme  Teufel  jederzeit  ein  Obolus  als  Viaticum 
bereit  liegt."  Reitzel  was  extremely  good-hearted  and  tried  to 
help  "down-and-outers"  either  by  his  ow^n  means  or  thru  his 
friends.  He  called  this  not  charity,  but  his  duty.  He  covered 
his  kind  deed  with  a  mantle  of  humor  as  may  be  seen  from  the 
following  advertisement  which  appeared  January  21,  1888: 
"Stellgesuch :  Ein  junger  Mann  von  angenehmen  x\euszern, 
welcher  einer  ausgedehnten  Reisebekanntschaft  sich  erfreut, 
durch  personliche  Liebenswiirdigkeit  alle  Herzen  erobert,  trotz- 
dem  aber  keinen  weiblichen  Anhang  hat,  in  Deutsch,  Englisch, 
Russisch,  Polnisch,  Esthnisch  conversieren  kann,  in  beiden 
Weltteilen  geeicht  ist,  und  notigenfalls  mittrinken  kann,  em- 
pfiehlt  sich  den  Herren  Hoteliers,  Restaurateurs,  Hallenbesit- 
zern  und  Wirten  als  theoretisch  und  empirisch  durchgebildete 
Barkeej>er. — Nachzufragen  in  der  Office  des  A.  T." 

A  special  target  for  Reitzel's  wit  was  a  Detroit  Catholic 
paper,  Die  Stimnie  der  Wahrheit,  and  its  editor,  a  certain  Mr. 
Miiller.  This  editor  seems  to  have  been,  unfortunately,  ex- 
tremely naive  and  bigoted,  hence  his  paper  presented  Reitzel 
with  one  opening  after  another  for  his  humorous  thrusts.  This 
was  the  case  particularly  in  the  first  few  years  of  the  Anne 
Teufel  when  Reitzel,  fresh  from  his  religious  tilt  at  Washing- 
ton, was  filled  with  an  ardor  to  enlighten  people  and  to  fight 
religion  with  his  bitter  satire.  In  this  vein  he  quoted  advertise- 
ments and  news  items  from  the  Stimme  der  Wahrheit,  speaking 
of  the  editor  alwa3^s  as  "der  Stimmenmiiller."  The  Catholics 
have  a  version  of  "HaufT's  Marchen"  "von  alien  irreligiosen 


32  Robert  Reitzel 

und  sittengefahrdeten  Auswiichsen  sorgsam  gereinigt."  He 
also  mentioned  that  Stimmenmiiller  explained  to  a  reader  who 
could  not  see  the  difference  l3etween  the  work  of  the  apostles 
who  cured  by  laying  on  of  hands  and  present-day  healers,  that 
there  is  a  vast  difference  between  humbug  and  humbug.  There 
appeared  one  day  in  this  paper  "poetry"  by  a  trappist  monk  in 
Africa  to  tell  of  the  splendid  work  the  Lord  was  doing  thru 
them  among  the  Zulus: 

"In  Zululand  in  Banden 
Die  schone  Keuschkeit  war, 
In  alien  Kaffernlanden 
Mit  ihr  war's  aus  und  gar. 
Es  blutete  der  Christen  Herz, 
Doch  endlich  lost   sich   unser   Schmerz. 

O  mog'  St.  Josef's  Ilg 
Erbliihn  im  Land  Natal, 
Erbliihn  in  Berg  und  Tal, 
Erbliihn  in  jedem  Kraal. 

Der  groszte  Kaffernadel, 

Die  groszte  Weiberzahl, 

Die  Eh'  gilt  ohne  Tadel, 

Wenn  Kinder  ohne  Zahl. 

Drum  weisz  die  Kaffernsprache  nix 

Von  Jungfrau  wie  von  Stiefelwix. 

Das  Madchen   in  der  Wiege 
1st  schon  bestimmt  zur  Eh' 
1st  kauflich  wie  die  Ziege 
Wenn  auch  von  Kopf  zur  Zeh', 
1st  armlich  wie  'ne  Kirchenmaus, 
Es  findet  dennoch  Mann  und  Haus. 

Das  Weib  lauft  oft  vom  Gatten, 

Sucht  eine  andre  Hand, 

Damonen  langst  schon  batten 

Gewalt  in  diesem  Land! 

Docht  jetzt  wird  rein  der  Ehebund 

Wenn  g'segnet  er  vom  Priestermund." 


Robert  Reitzel  33 

This  song  is  to  be  sung  to  the  popular  melody  of  Zu  Mantua 
in  Bandcn.  Reitzel  lauds  the  good  priest's  spirit  and  proffers 
his  assistance  in  this  popularization  of  holy  things  with  verses 
such  as  the  following,  which  he  also  composed  to  be  sung  to 
familiar  airs: 

"G'rad  aus  der  Kirche  da  komm  ich  heraus, 
Wie  klang  so  herrlich  der  Orgel  Gebraus! 
Wie  sprach  der  Pfarrer  so  lehrreich  und  gut, 
Starkte  mir  wieder  den  christlichen  Mut, 
Trula,  dirula,"  etc. 

"Schluszstrophe : 

"Wie  mich's  hier  schaudert,  der  Teufel  geht  um, 
Weltkinder  tanzen  nach  seinem  Gebrumm, 
tjberall  liegt  mir  zum  Fallen  ein  Strick, 
Da  geh'  ich  lieber  zur  Kirche  zuriick. 
Trula,  dirula,"  etc. 

In  hearty  concurrence  with  the  idea  of  the  African  priest, 
tho  perhaps  not  appreciated  by  him,  Reitzel  offered  more  re- 
ligious adaptations  of  popular  German  airs: 

"Madele,  komm,  komm,  komm, 
O  komm  zu  mir  zur  Beichte, 
Die  Straf  die  ich  dir  geb  ist  ja  nur  'ne  leichte 
Bist  du  vom  Siinden  rein,  fiihlst  du  nochmal  so  fein, 
Madel  komm,  komm,  komm,  O  komm  zu  mir  zur  Beichte!" 

Other  gleanings  from  the  Stimnie  der  Wahrhcit  were  the 
news  that  Herr  Konrad  Klippel,  the  beloved  ex-sheriff  and 
owner  of  a  brick-kiln,  altho  a  Protestant,  has  donated  ten  thou- 
sand bricks  for  the  building  of  the  church  "zur  schmerzhaften 
Mutter  Gottes."  What  a  good  thing  that  we  have  the  "Stimme," 
says  Reitzel,  otherwise  such  flowers  would  bloom  to  blush  un- 
seen. 

On  May  16,  1885,  "Der  arme  Teufel:  das  gottloseste  Blatt 
des  Erdkreises,  welches  jede  Woche  von  haarstraubenden 
Blasphemien  strotzt,  wird  in  der  Office  des   Michigan  Volks- 


34  Robert  Rcitzcl 

blattcs  gedruckt.  l^er  Katholizismus  der  Gebriider  Kramer  ist 
elastisch.  you  bet!"  Reitzel  pointed  out  immediately  that  the 
Stimmc  der  Wahrhcit  was  printed  by  Lutherans;  furthermore, 
that  the  lowest  wages  are  paid  to  these  printers,  tho  working 
for  this  pious  paper  must  mean  for  a  typesetter  what  it  means 
for  a  Russian  to  be  condemned  to  work  in  the  Siberian  mines! 
However,  two  weeks  later  pressure  must  have  been  brought  to 
bear  on  the  Kramer  brothers,  for  they  refused  to  print  the 
world's  most  godless  paper,  putting  Reitzel  to  the  inconvenience 
of  looking  for  another  printer.  In  many  other  ways  the  Catho- 
lics of  Detroit  made  things  unpleasant  for  the  "Free-Thinkers." 
The  latter  had  an  organization  with  Sunday  meetings  at  which 
times  they  were  addressed  by  different  speakers,  most  prominent 
among  them  Robert  Reitzel.  Shortly  before  the  appearance  of 
Der  arme  Teufel  these  meetings  at  the  "Arbeiterhalle"  were 
disturbed  in  the  rudest  manner  by  Catholics.  Reitzel  tells  in 
his  first  number  how  he  called  on  Mr.  Miiller,  introducing  him- 
self, "Ich  bin  der  freche  Gotteslasterer  Reitzel."  The  Catholic 
editor  on  hearing  Reitzel's  story  agreed  with  him  that  what- 
ever the  dififerences  between  them  might  be,  disturbing  a  public 
meeting  was  an  uncalled  for  rudeness,  and  offered  to  print  a 
protest  by  Reitzel  in  his  paper.  But  he  did  not  print  the  pro- 
test, for  Reitzel.  possibly  taking  a  bit  of  unfair  advantage  of 
the  situation,  wrote  an  article  that  must  have  been  extremely 
provoking  to  the  Catholics,  for  he  made  sarcastic  remarks  about 
things  that  are  most  sacred  to  pious  believers.  Instead  of  Reit- 
zel's communication  there  appeared  an  article  beginning  "Rob- 
ert Reitzel,  der  freche  Gotteslasterer,"  while  another  article  con- 
cluded "denn  das  Freidenkertum  stammt  hauptsachlich  vom 
Dreck,  namlich  von  den  Pfiitzen  der  Fleischeslust  und  des 
Geizes."  No  other  paper  in  Detroit  would  print  Reitzel's  pro- 
test, for  which  one  can  hardlv  blame  them.  Here  was  a  most 
bigoted  fight  with  narrowmindedness  on  both  sides.  Naturally, 
an  enthusiastic  idealist  like  Reitzel  felt  a  strong  need  for  an 
organ  in  which  he  could  express  the  message  which  he  felt 
called  upon  to  deliver  to  the  world,  and  thus  he  founded  his 
own  paper.     The  fact  that  Reitzel  published  in  the  first  volumes 


Robert  Reitsel  35 

of  his  paper  under  the  heading  Aus  meinen  Vortr'dgen,  essays 
on  the  folk  song,  Shakespeare,  the  minor  characters  in  Goethe's 
Faust,  the  Apocrypha,  and  a  wide  range  of  Hterary  subjects, 
seems  to  indicate  that  he  had  long  been  yearning  for  a  good 
literary  journal  in  America  in  which  he  could  publish  the  works 
of  his  pen.  Born,  however,  directly  out  of  the  spirit  of  Freiden- 
kertum,  the  Anne  Teufel  for  three  or  four  years  shows  an  un- 
flagging hatred  of  the  church,  but  gradually  it  grows  away  from 
this  somewhat  cramped  position  and  broadens  out  into  a  belle- 
tristic  journal  the  like  of  which  we  have  never  again  seen  in 
America.  Tho  Reitzel  never  becomes  a  friend  of  the  church — 
either  Protestant  or  Catholic — yet  he  forgets  to  fight  the  church 
over  all  the  more  important  and  more  beautiful  things  that  at- 
tract his  eager  spirit. 

For  the  first  years  a  most  humorous  fight  goes  on  between 
these  two  papers.  Reitzel  always  delights  his  readers  with  the 
terrible  things  "Stimmenmiiller"  says  about  him,  also  when 
"Stimmenmiiller"  shows  particular  intolerant  tendencies,  e.  g., 
in  protesting  against  having  a  Protestant  organist  play  at  a 
Catholic  wedding.  March,  1888,  the  Catholic  editor  reports  the 
death  of  a  member  of  his  church  who  left  thirty-five  thousand 
dollars  to  his  two  children,  but  not  one  cent  to  the  church.  He 
goes  on  to  say  that  this  man  now  burning  in  purgatory  is  very 
sorry  for  his  failure  to  remember  the  church,  and  that  he  hopes 
that  his  children  will  rectify  this  sin  and  help  their  father  out 
of  his  suffering.  Reitzel  scatters  such  examples  of  medievalism 
in  Detroit  very  freely  thru  the  first  volumes  of  his  paper,  such 
as  the  six  articles  listed  by  a  young  Catholic  priest  as  Women's 
Rights!  "i.  A  woman  has  a  right  to  take  care  of  her  children 
and  to  whip  them  when  they  do  not  l^ehave.  2.  A  woman  has 
a  right  to  sew  the  buttons  on  the  shirt  of  her  husband.  3.  A 
woman  has  a  right  to  go  out  into  company  when  her  husband 
accompanies  her.  4.  A  woman  has  a  right  to  be  quiet  when 
it  is  not  her  business  to  interfere.  5.  A  woman  has  a  right 
to  be  kind  to  her  husband,  even  if  he  is  a  scoundrel.  6.  She 
has  a  right  to  bear  her  lot  in  Christian  patience  and  to  earn  her 
reward  in  Heaven." 


36  Robert  Reitsel 

An  example  of  the  kind  of  thing  that  must  have  irritated 
every  good  beHever  is  the  following:  "The  Anglican  bishop 
of  Hongkong  has  ordered  that  tea  be  used  in  the  sacrament  in- 
stead of  wine,  for,  he  says,  had  Christ  lived  in  China,  he  and 
his  disciples  would  have  used  tea.  According  to  this  logic 
the  blood  of  Christ  would  change  with  the  Bavarians  into  beer, 
with  the  Irish  into  whiskey,  with  the  Laplanders  into  whale 
oil,  with  the  Kansans  to  water,  and  with  the  fools  of  all  na- 
tions into  ink." 

The  feud  between  the  two  camps  was  not  confined  to  the 
editorial  rooms,  for  Reitzel  reports  one  day  that  one  of  His 
agents  sold  a  copy  of  his  paper  in  a  saloon  and  invested  the 
proceeds  in  a  drink.  While  he  was  thus  refreshing  himself,  for 
further  sales,  a  good  Catholic  present  in  the  same  saloon  threw 
all  the  remaining  copies  of  the  agent,  twenty-two  in  number, 
into  the  fire.  Reitzel  says  in  a  "Public  Announcement  to  the 
Gentleman  concerned  :  The  bold  assassin  is  known.  It  is  a  poor 
joke  at  all  events,  but  the  man  shall  pay  for  the  papers.  If 
he  does  not  send  the  money,  I  will  have  his  name  published  in 
the  columns  of  the  Stimmc  dcr  IVahrhcit  by  my  friend  Miiller 
and  also  have  it  publicly  announced  from  the  pulpit  next  Sun- 
day by  'father'  Friedland.  N.  B.  The  money  might  also  be  de- 
posited at  said  saloon  to  form  the  nucleus  of  a  drink  fund  for 
thirsty  proletarians."  It  can  be  readily  understood  that  such 
witty  thrusts  irritated  the  Catholics  considerably,  and  Miiller 
mentioned  Reitzel  frequently  in  his  paper.  One  week  Reitzel 
finds  no  attack  on  himself  in  the  St  inline  dcr  VVahrhcit  and  asks, 
"Is  it  possible  that  I  have  insulted  friend  Miiller?"  But  in 
the  very  next  number  Reitzel  finds  that  this  conjecture  was 
false.  In  an  article  about  Germany,  Miiller  mentions  Schopf- 
heim  and  remarks  parenthetically,  "Wo  unsers  Wissens  der  arme 
Teufel  Robert  Reitzel,  der  frechste  aller  Gotteslasternden 
Zeitungsschreiber,  herstammt."  "S  'ist  wenig,"  says  Reitzel, 
"aber  man  sieht  die  Liebe!" 

Here  then  was  Reitzel's  own  paper  which  aimed  to  give 
the  editor's  personality  and  views,  strictly  non-partisan,  kein 
Tendenzhlatt.     The  editor,  sworn  enemy  of  society  and  of  most 


Robert  Reitzel  37 

contemporary  newspapers,  recommended  to  his  readers  the  Mil- 
waukee Freidenker,  a  paper  dedicated  to  the  fight  against  the 
church  and  against  patriotism,  tho  he  wanted  it  known  that  he 
would  never  swear  by  all  that  this  paper  printed.  In  fact,  Reit- 
zel very  frequently  had  heated  arguments  with  the  editor  of 
the  Freidenker,  Bobbe,  tho  he  agreed  with  him  in  the  main. 
Practically,  however,  Reitzel's  paper  had  its  firm  principles  for 
which  it  carried  on  propaganda,  it  was  a  Tendenzblatt.  These 
principles  cannot  be  enumerated  as  tersely  as,  for  example,  those 
of  the  Freidenker,  but  we  might  say  Reitzel  stood  in  the  first 
place  for  liberty.  By  liberty  he  understood  freedom  of  the 
mind  from  dogma  and  superstitions ;  freedom  from  irksome  moral 
laws  and  hypocritical  conventions,  i.  e.,  he  was  against  marriage, 
prohibition,  and  various  forms  of  Puritanism;  freedom  from 
political  oppression,  oppression  by  capital  and  military  force; 
freedom  from  a  narrow  nationalism,  the  fosterer  of  wars,  free- 
dom from  monarchs  and  tyrants.  He  stood  for  education  of 
the  masses,  enlightenment,  sincere  truth,  hatred  of  all  sham  and 
pretense,  and  the  call  of  beauty  in  all  the  arts.  In  this  combina- 
tion he  was  unique  among  German-American  papers — in  fact, 
we  can  compare  this  Kraftmensch,  this  iconoclast,  this  modern 
writer,  this  enfant  terrible  in  journalism  only  to  a  literary  paper 
with  socialistic  and  anarchistic  tendencies  founded  a  little  later 
in  Munich,  Die  Gesellschaft.  We  shall  come  back  to  a  com- 
parison of  the  two  journals  later,  and  present  here  a  few  criti- 
cisms of  this  newest  among  German-American  publications. 

The  Illinois  Staatszeitung  speaks  of  the  Arme  Teufel  as 
a  fine  paper  for  free-thinkers,  more  radical  than  the  Milwaukee 
Freidenker,  also  "frischer  und  beiszender."  Besides  its  rich  and 
spicy  food  for  the  intellect  it  offers  food  also  for  those  suffering 
from  bodily  hunger,  as  is  shown  by  an  announcement  which  is 
most  honorable  indeed  to  the  big  heart  of  the  editor:  "All 
transient  poor  devils  are  invited  to  call  at  our  office  to  receive 
a  small  viaticum,  not  as  alms,  but  as  a  tribute  which  we  feel 
that  we  owe  to  society  in  general."  The  Belletristische  Journal 
calls  it  "original  und  pikant,  es  ist  eine  geistreiche  und  gesin- 


38  Robert  Reitzel 

nungstiichtige  journalistische  Erscheinung,  deren  Schneidigkeit 
besonders  in  dem  etwas  stillen  Detroit  Epoche  machen  sollte." 
One  can  gain  an  idea  of   the  enthusiastic  fire  of   youth 
aflame  in  Reitzel's  soul  which  is  so  typical  of  social  and  religious 
reformers,  from  the  letter  written  to  Reitzel  from  Switzerland 
by  Professor  Dodel-Port,  a  professor  of  philosophy  and  editor 
of  the  works  of  the  Bauernphilosoph  Deublcr.     February    14, 
1885,  Reitzel  quotes  him  as  follows:     "Sie  wiinschen  mein  Ur- 
teil.     Gas  gebe  ich  Ihnen  gern  und  halte  nicht  hinterm  Berge 
zu  behaupten,   dasz  das  der  respektabelste  Teufel  ist,   den   ich 
kennen  lernte.       Der    nimmt  gleich    alien    Blodsinn    und    alle 
Ungerechtigkeit,  wo  er  sie  findet  auf  seine  Homer  und  peitscht 
manniglich  die  Verrottung  und  Verlotterung  unserer  modernen 
Zustande.     Der  tiefe  ethische  Hintergrund  aller  dieser  wackern 
Teufeleien  verleiht  ihrem  Blatt  einen  hohen  kulturelleri  Wert; 
das  werden  Freunde  und  Feinde  bald  erkennen.    Ich  meine,  dasz 
Sie  da  eine  hohe  kulturelle  Mission  iibernommen  haben  und  die 
Sympathie    aller    ehrlichen    Menschenfreunde    erobern    werden. 
Der   arme    Teufel    wird    also    kaum    eines    friihzeitigen   Todes 
sterben  und  nicht  etwa  nach  Wunsch  und  Gebet  der  Feigen  und 
Heuchler  'selig  im  Herrn  entschlafen.'     Ich  wiinsche  ihm  von 
Herzen  ein  langes.  langes  Leben,  ein  cwigcs  Leben,  wie  jedem 
braven  armen  Teufel  ein  solches  ohnehin  schriftlich  verheiszen 
ist.     Ganz  besonders  hat  mich  der  Artikel  betrefifs  der  Sterilitat 
der  reinen  Wissenschaft  in  Amerika  interessiert.     Das  ist  reine 
unverfalschte  Wahrheit  und  solches  musz  man  doch  immer  und 
immer   wieder    sagen.      Was    Sie   iiber   Erziehung   in    Waisen- 
hausern  sagen,  gilt  auch  fiir  die  europaischen  Verhaltnisse.     Nur 

drauf! 

"Mogen  die  Freidenker  Amerikas  im  Interesse  ihrer  guten 
Sache  so  zusammenhalten,  wie  es  die  Katholiken  auf  dem  ganzen 
weiten  Erdenrund  auch  tun. 

"Mit  herzlichem  Grusz  und  biederem  Handschlag. 

"Ihr, 

"A.    DoDEL-PORT.'' 

As  one  might  readily  surmise  from  this  letter,  Reitzel  was 
taking  a  stand  for  humanity  over  against  all  tyranny,  cruelty, 


Robert  Reitzel  39 

or  pettiness  that  came  to  his  notice.  He  uncovered  and  held 
up  to  public  gaze  shocking  conditions  in  the  administration  of 
orphans'  homes,  county  poor  farms,  the  street  railway  company, 
the  school  board,  revivalism  similar  to  campaigns  as  Billy  Sun- 
day carries  them  on,  and  other  public  matters.  Moreover,  he 
believed  in  being  personal  and  direct  in  his  attacks,  quoting  the 
P'rench  Socialist,  Claude  Tillier,  as  a  noble  exponent  of  this 
course  of  action.  "Telling  the  truth"  in  this  manner  made  many 
enemies  for  Reitzel  and  got  him  into  many  scrapes.  One  of 
the  most  amusing  of  these,  as  Reitzel  tells  it,  is  the  affair  with 
a  certain  Mr.  Flintermann,  a  member  of  the  board  of  health. 
One  fine  day  when  Reitzel  with  a  day's  work  behind  him  left 
his  editorial  sanctum  to  bring  the  gods  a  drink  offering  in  a 
near-by  inn,  this  Mr.  Flintermann  attempted  to  horsewhip 
Reitzel  for  something  he  had  printed  about  this  prominent 
German  of  Detroit.  As  Reitzel  was  the  younger,  stronger,  and 
more  agile  man  of  the  two,  Flintermann  did  not  succeed  in 
his  attempted  assault  and  battery,  but  had  his  murderous  weapon 
wrenched  from  his  hands  and  his  face  punched  for  his  pains. 
A  policeman  impartially  arrested  both  men  and  conveyed  them 
to  the  police  station  in  an  open  patrol  wagon  crossing  straight 
thru  the  German  section  of  Detroit  to  the  great  chagrin  of  the 
honorable  member  of  the  health  board,  and  the  corresponding 
delight  of  Robert  Reitzel.  Both  gave  bail  for  their  appearance 
the  next  morning.  There  was  a  trial  in  the  police  court  at 
which  Reitzel's  friends  appeared  displaying  roses  in  their  but- 
tonholes and  the  effects  of  a  jolly  night  in  their  general  boister- 
ous behavior.  The  judge  very  quickly  dismissed  the  case  and 
a  good  time  was  had  by  almost  all  present.  Reitzel  told  the 
whole  story  in  his  paper  in  the  drollest  possible  manner  and 
ever  afterward  spoke  of  his  assailant  as  "der  verstorbene 
Flintermann"  or  "der  selige  Flintermann,"  altho  the  unhappy 
gentleman  lived  to  enjoy  his  notoriety  for  many  more  years. 

Quite  characteristic  of  his  independent  judgment  in  all 
things  is  Reitzel's  position  with  reference  to  the  German  thea- 
tre in  Detroit.  German  theatres  in  America  have  always  been 
hothouse  plants  whose  precarious  existence  the  German  news- 


40  Robert  Reitzel 

papers  have  always  feared  to  endanger  by  frank  crushing  criti- 
cism at  any  time.    A  historian  of  the  German  theatres  in  Amer- 
ica, who  uses  as  his  sources  the  German  newspapers,  is  amazed 
or  gratified  by  finding  recorded  only  most  excellent  high-class 
performances  by  first-class  actors.     But  Reitzel  believed  that  in 
this  case,  as  in  all  others,  the  undisguised  truth  would  be  best 
for  the  actors  as  well  as  the  public.     Therefore  he  told  the 
truth  as  he  saw  it  most  frankly  in  regard  to  all  the  plays  and 
performers  that  he  criticized,  while  the  Detroit  Abendpost  and 
other  German  dailies  sang  indiscriminate  hymns  of  praise  on 
the  German  drama  as  presented  in  the  "Turnhalle."    Yet  Reitzel 
could  not  be  said  to  be  hypercritical,  either,  quite  frequently  he 
praised  a  play  or  a  concert  and  urged  the  people  to  support  these 
efforts.     Tho  he  asked  to  be  spared  invitations  to  all  the  "Stif- 
tungsfeste"  and  "masked  balls"  of  the  Detroit  Germans,  yet  he 
could  at  times  go  there,  enjoy  himself  thoroly,  and  write  a  droll 
description   of   the   editorial   adventures).      In   this   democratic 
tendency  we  find  him  closely  related  to  the  group  about  Conrad 
in  Munich,  who  attacked  Heyse  for  his  aristocratic  manner  of 
life.    Of  course,  this  relationship  was  not  due  to  any  correspond- 
ence between  Reitzel  and  the  group  of  the  Gesellschaft,  it  was 
quite  accidental,  or  rather  deeply  rooted  in  the  characters  of  the 
editors  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.     This  is  shown  beyond 
doubt  by  the  fact  that  in  the  second  year  of  the  Arme  Teufel 
Paul  Heyse  wrote  a  letter  to  Reitzel  expressing  a  high  opinion 
of  Reitzel's  paper  and  wishing  him  the  best  of  success,  a  senti- 
ment which  Heyse  probably  did  not  entertain  for  the  Munchener 
Gesellschaft.     Reitzel's   sense   of    fairness   was   not   one-sided, 
either.    No  one  could  have  accepted  criticisms  with  greater  grace 
or  acknowledged  corrections  more  frankly  than  he.     Very  fre- 
quently he  would  answer  his  friends  simply,  'Thr  habt  Recht." 
As  a  more  or  less  consistent  anarchist,  Reitzel  was  the  foe 
of  all  so-called  legitimate  governments  by  the  grace  of  God.    The 
emperor  of  Brazil  who  abdicated  voluntarily  at  the  wish  of  the 
people  was  regarded  by  him  as  one  more  step  toward  ending 
dynastic  rule.     To  him  William  I,  German  emperor,  was  the 
"Kartatschenprinz"  and  Bismarck  with  his  imperialism  one  of 


Robert  Reitzel  41 

the  most  baneful  influences  in  the  world,  the  breeder  of  future 
wars.  Reitzel  greeted  the  news  of  German  colonies  in  Africa 
with  the  remark,  "musz  das  deutsche  Reich  noch  nach  Afrika 
gehen,  gibt  es  nicht  genug  Kaffern  in  Deutschland!"  His  heart 
was  with  'forty-eighters  like  Marcklin  who  sounded  a  warning 
to  the  new  empire  lest  after  their  victories  there  should  follow 
a  new  period  of  Metternichean  reaction  v'~ 

"Mein  liebes  Deutschland  pasz  mir  auf 
Statt  dich  auf's  Ohr  zu  legen, 
Nimm  mit  der  Einigkeit  in  Kauf 
Die  Freiheit  allerwegen ! 
Die  Augen  auf!     Nimm  dich  in  aclit! 
Um's  Beste  bist  du  sonst  gebracht — 
Denk  nur  an  Anno  fiinfzehn!" 

or  like  Fr.  Stolze,  who  writes  in  the  Arnie  Teufel,  April  10, 
1886,  Aus  der  Geisterschau,  recalling  Uhland's  "Wenn  heut  ein 
Geist  hernieder  stiege" : 

"Ich  hab'  das  ganze  Land  durchfahren, — 
Wer  wird  in  uns'rer  Zeit  auch  gehen ! — 
Doch  hab  ich  von  der  wunderbaren 
Der  Freiheit  keine  Spur  gesehn 

Der  Freiheit  konntet  ihr  entsagen 
Und  Macht — die  nennt  ihr  Volkergliick! 
Mir  will's  in  Deutschland  nicht  behagen, 
Ich  wend'  nach  oben  mich  zuriick, 
Ihr  mogt's  hier  unten  weiter  treiben 
Bis  man  euch  einst  die  Tiire  weist, 
So  lang  will  ich  im  Himmel  bleiben, 
Ihr  braucht  in  Deutschland  keinen  Geist !" 

On  the  other  hand  Reitzel  had  little  sympathy  with  revolu- 
tionists of  '48,  who  were  intoxicated  by  the  German  success  in 
arms  and  now  were  reconciled  to  a  German  empire.  The  lat- 
ter position  was  taken  by  the  great  majority  of  'forty-eighters 


'  Strom  der  Zeit,  Milwaukee,  C.  N.  Caspar. 


42 


Robert  Reitzel 


in  America  and  abroad,  the  empire  meant  to  them  the  very  real- 
ization of  the  dreams  of  their  youth  for  which  they  were  ex- 
patriated. Naturally  enough  a  man  like  Titus  Ulrich,  who 
wrote  in  his  Landsturmlied  of  '48: 

"Und  wenn  die  Welt  voll  Kon'ge  war 
Mit  Schwerten  und  Kanonen 
Wir  wollen's  ihnen  lohnen !" 

and  in  1886,  bowing  low  in  deep  gratitude,  received  from  the 
Kaiser  a  statuette  of  his  majesty,  seemed  to  Reitzel  no  better 
than  a  traitor.  Likewise  he  considered  the  eulogies  of  William  I, 
which  appeared  in  German-American  papers  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  as  quite  superfluous.  This  antagonism  against  the  Ger- 
man empire  was  augmented  by  the  Sozialistengesets,  which  ex- 
iled many  excellent  and  brilliant  men  and  the  1994  prosecutions 
for  lese  majeste  in  the  year  1888.  With  bitter  scorn  he  writes 
February  17,  1894,  that  the  emperor  took  a  sudden  interest  in 
literature,  inasmuch  as  he  refused  to  allow  the  Schillerpreis  to 
be  awarded  to  Ludwig  Fulda,  "because  he  is  too  young."  "Also 
Wilhelm  darf  mit  dreiszig  Jahren  schon  den  Zerschmetterer 
spielen,  aber  der  Dichter  ist  mit  einunddreiszig  noch  nicht  reif 
fiir  eine  literarische  Auszeichnung."  The  real  reason  Reitzel 
finds  in  Fulda's  Talisman,  "wo  der  Hemdzipfel  des  Gottes- 
gnadentums  einigermaszen  unehrerbietig  behandelt  ist."  This 
is  sufficient  reason  for  the  German  emperor  to  meddle  with 
literature.  All  we  need  is  that  the  Kaiser  himself  write  a  play 
and  command  his  subjects  to  attend  the  performances.  William 
would  like  to  be  a  Nero,  but  he  is  nearer  to  "Blodsinn"  than  to 
"Wahnsinn." 

In  this  respect  Reitzel  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  his 
own  generation  in  Germany.  The  enthusiastic  group  of  ideal- 
ists who  brought  on  the  literary  revolution  of  the  'eighties  were 
all  inclined  toward  socialism.  The  literary  revolution  which 
brought  on  naturalism  was  born  out  of  economic  causes,  chiefly 
because  art  was  so  foreign  to  the  particular  kind  of  life  that 
modern  capitalism  and  its  concomitant  Marxism  were  putting 


Robert  Reitzel  43 

into  the  foreground.  Kretzer's  Die  V erkommenen,  DehmeFs 
Der  Arheitsmann,  Hauptmann's  Weber,  Fritz  von  Uhde's  and 
Liebermann's  paintings,  these  are  just  a  few  of  the  signs  of  the 
times  picked  at  random  to  illustrate  the  entrance  of  the  masses 
into  literature.  There  was  no  "Hurrahpatriotismus"  among  this 
group  either,  many  were  quite  anti-militaristic,,  very  prominent 
among  them  Bertha  von  Suttner.  The  thousands  of  expatria- 
tions thru  the  Somalistengesetz  and  the  prosecutions  for  lese 
majeste  bear  witness  to  the  temper  of  the  times  in  Germany. 
The  fact  that  these  two  offenses  ceased  gradually  to  be  consid- 
ered criminal,  bears  out  the  vigorous  protest  of  this  generation 
against  them,  just  as  the  socialization  of  Germany  vindicates  to 
a  great  extent  the  socialist  theories. 

Reitzel  was  extremely  anti-Treitschke,  just  as  he  was  dis- 
gusted with  Heyse,  Bodenstedt,  Hamerling,  and  others  for  their 
veneration  of  Bismarck.  The  unrelenting  Herwegh,  "der  nie 
zu  Kreuse  kroch,"  the  poet  of  the  song  of  class  hatred  and 
the  workman's  Marseillaise,  was  a  man  after  Reitzel's  heart. 
In  his  opinion  justice  could  be  achieved  only  thru  force,  not 
as  the  Milwaukee  poet,  Otto  Soubron,  wrote,  "Wir  kampfen  fiir 
das  Menschentum  mit  Feder  und  Papier."  Of  him  Reitzel  said 
that  if  it  is  true  that  Nero  decapitated  one  hundred  poets  who 
were  praising  the  power  of  the  word  and  sweet  peace,  it  was 
not  the  worst  thing  this  tyrant  had  done.  Reitzel  advised  the 
workingman  to  assert  himself,  rather  than  to  permit  himself  to 
be  made  "Kanonenf utter"  under  such  rulers  as  William  II  and 
his  chancellor,  Caprivi,  who  endeavored  to  equal  Bismarck  in 
his  catch  words,  such  as  the  one  about  the  duty  of  the  Ger- 
mans to  civilize  Africa  "mit  der  Bibel  und  der  Flinte."  As  to 
books  showing  the  benefits  of  wars,  he  warns  that  a  politician 
could  very  well  write  on  the  good  effects  of  stuffing  the  ballot 
boxes.  Why  all  this  glorifying  of  the  soldier,  why  not  pension 
the  ^orkingman?  And  right  along  we  find  this  perfectly  sin- 
cere man  testing  himself  as  to  the  reality  and  sincerity  of  his 
opinions,  as  when  he  says  that  he  would  like  to  be  an  Interna- 
tionalist, that  he  has  lost  all  enthusiasm  for  wars,  that  he  enter- 
tains no  dreams  of  the  political   greatness   of   his   fatherland. 


44  Robert  Reitzel 

yet  he  cannot  avoid  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  when  he  finds  the 
best  thoughts  in  a  German  author,  or  a  feeling  of  depression 
when  a  German  has  made  a  fool  of  himself. 

As  especially  unworthy  it  appears  to  Reitzel  when  Ger- 
mans in  this  country  show  a  humble  devotion  for  the  German 
monarch  by  the  grace  of  God.  He  is  eager  to  expose  all 
German-American  papers  subsidized  by  the  "Reptilienfund." 
Because  Reitzel  is  no  "Deutschtiimler"  (as  well  as  for  many 
other  reasons)  he  is  attacked  by  many  German-American  pa- 
pers. Dr.  Goebel  of  the  Bellctristische  Journal  calls  "A.  T." 
"ein  Winkelblatt  im  Sumpf."  Reitzel  could  find  no  better  term 
for  Goebel's  nationalistic  ideals  than  the  expressive  "Ouatsch." 
With  a  characteristic  striking  expression  he  said  of  Professor 
Goebel,  "vom  tristebellischen"  that  he  was  going  "back  to  Cal- 
vary" in  his  veneration  of  the  empire  by  the  grace  of  God.  For 
Goebel,  Rattermann,  Seidensticker,  and  other  historians  of  the 
German-Americans  he  had  but  little  sympathy.  "Lobliches 
wurde  geleistet,  dem  Patriotismus  ein  Wohlgefallen,  und  es  tut 
auch  einem  Heimatlosen  wohl,  wenn  er  erfahrt,  dasz  bei  dem 
groszen  Ereignisse  dieses  Kontinentes  auch  einmal  ein  Miiller 
mitmarschierte  oder  ein  Schulze  sein  Leben  verloren  hat.  Wie 
gesagt,  an  Patriotismus  und  gutem  Willen  fehlt  es  den  deutsch- 
amerikanischen  Geschichtsschreibern  nicht,  aber  was  mir  bis 
jetzt  zu  Gesicht  kam  mutet  mich  sehr  diirftig  an  und  ist  so  ge- 
schrieben  dasz  es  eben  nur  Patrioten  interessieren  kann."  Under 
the  head,  "Und  bist  du  nicht  willig,  so  branch  ich  Gewalt,"  he 
tells  of  the  entry  of  his  name  and  a  few  of  his  poems  into  the 
second  edition  of  Zimmermann's  Deutsch  in  Amerika.  When 
Dr.  Zimmermann — whom  Reitzel,  incidentally,  had  exposed  in 
a  patent  medicine  fraud  in  connection  with  the  notorious  Dr. 
Pusheck — had  asked  for  contributions,  Reitzel  had  indignantly 
refused  to  appear  in  the  same  volume  with  a  lot  of  "Nachtlich- 
ter,"  but  now  it  was  brought  to  his  attention  that  his  works  also 
adorned  the  volume  together  with  a  request  to  buy  the  book! 

The  antagonistic  feeling  in  political,  scientific,  and  religious 
questions  of  the  German  poets  of  this  generation — Reitzel  in- 
cluded— was  derived  from  sources  like  Karl  Marx,  Das  Kapital; 


Robert  Reitzel  4^, 

Biichner,  Kraft  und  Stoff;  Darwin,  Origin  of  Species;  Haeckel, 
IVeltrdtsel;  Strausz,  Lehen  Jesu.  To  this  must  be  added  an  im- 
patient attitude  toward  the  conventions  and  morality  of  the 
times,  to  quote  Karl  Bleibtreu,  "Zugleich  gilt  es  das  alte  Thema 
der  Liebe  nun  im  modernen  Sinn,  losgelost  von  den  Satzungen 
der  herkommlichen  Moral  zu  beleuchten."  This  background  gives 
a  general  idea  of  what  attitudes  one  might  expect  to  find  taken 
in  the  Arme  Teufel  on  all  questions.  Of  course,  a  man  of  the 
caliber  of  Reitzel  was  always  bigger  than  even  his  broad  creed, 
and  moreover  he  grew  and  developed  as  the  years  went  on. 

In  the  second  volume  Reitzel  prints  a  letter  from  Calvin 
Thomas,  professor  of  German  at  Ann  Arbor,  asking  the  Ger- 
mans to  contribute  to  a  fund  for  a  Goethe  library  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan.  Reitzel  encourages  this  most  heartily,  only 
he  says,  this  Professor  Thomas  is  a  church  member  and  a  pro- 
hibitionist, "armer  Goethe!" 

At  the  same  time  there  occurred  the  tragedy  on  the  Chicago 
Haymarket,  now  believed  by  many  to  have  been  one  of  the 
greatest  legal  crimes  in  history  as,  for  example,  by  Governor  Alt- 
geld,  who  in  his  pamphlet  vindicates  and  completely  exonerates 
the  victims.  Reitzel  asks  for  contributions  to  help  fight  against 
this  conviction  in  the  court  in  Chicago.  Then  he  travels  to  Chi- 
cago and  visits  the  men  in  "murderers'  row."  A  letter  from 
Spiess  appears  in  the  Armer  Teiifel  which  Reitzel  says  sounds 
like  a  monolog  from  Biichner's  Danton's  Tod.  The  paper  be- 
comes much  more  serious  in  these  days  when  Reitzel  saw  clearly 
thru  the  issue  at  stake,  but  could  not  arouse  the  people  to  action. 
No  one  believed  that  the  men  would  really  be  condemned  to 
death,  while  Reitzel  said  in  his  paper  and  at  mass-meetings  that 
the  only  way  to  save  the  men  was  to  get  them  out  of  jail  and 
the  hands  of  the  legal  machinery  by  force.  The  editorials  now 
are  Gedanken  i'tbcr  den  Tod,  Aphorismen  eines  Uehelgelaimten, 
while  the  gay  mockery  of  Stimmenmiiller  ceases.  And  when  the 
death  sentence  was  pronounced  the  paper  went  out  draped  in 
black  with  an  article  by  the  editor,  "Was  weben  sie  dort  um  den 
Rabenstein."  As  tho  gifted  with  the  vision  of  a  Cassandra,  he 
had  foreseen  the  execution  of  the  seven  idealists  and  also  their 


46  Robert  Reitzel 

ultimate  vindication  in  many  quarters,  but  like  the  tragic  prophet- 
ess of  old  he  also  preached  to  deaf  ears.  No  other  event  left 
such  deep  marks  in  the  many  volumes  of  the  Arme  Teufel  as  did 
the  death  of  the  anarchists  in  Chicago. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  third  volume  we  find  Die  Ahen- 
teuer  eines  Griinen,  Reitzel's  biographical  novel  filling  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  pages  in  a  quarto  volume.  This  novel  is  a  fine 
contribution  to  humorous  German  literature,  recalling  Reuter, 
Scheffel  or  Hauff.  Likewise  criticisms  of  musical  events  by 
Ariolus,  a  pseudonym  of  Reitzel  himself.  The  editor  is  mak- 
ing lecture  tours  to  the  East  and  West,  and  speaks  very  fre- 
quently at  Detroit.  Frau  Hedwig  Hendrich-Wilhelmi,  a  Ger- 
man free-thinker  touring  this  country,  is  favorably  commented 
upon  in  the  Arme  Teufel.  Robert  Seidel,  the  Swiss  revolution- 
ary poet,  sends  a  protest  against  "das  (^hicagoer  Bluturteil"  and 
poems  by  him  appear  very  frequently  in  the  columns  of  Reitzel's 
paper.  The  paper  is  for  the  most  part  devoted  to  belles-lettres, 
strongly  political  in  a  radical  direction,  but  there  are  also  many 
articles  on  scientific  subjects,  frequently  on  new  developments 
in  medicine  and  psychology.  We  find  that  Konrad  Nies  begins 
to  publish  his  short-lived  magazine,  Deutsclir-Amerikanische 
Dichtung,  to  which  Reitzel  contributes  and  which  he  reviews 
monthly.  The  first  number  appeared  January  i,  1888,  in  Omaha, 
Nebraska.  One  finds  notes  about  most  radical  papers  in  Amer- 
ica, Tucker's  Liberty  in  Boston ;  Most's  paper  in  New  York,  and 
Schumm's  Libertas.  also  in  Boston.  Compared  to  the  Arme 
Teufel,  these  papers  are  extremely  ephemeral.  They  had  no 
personality  like  Reitzel's  to  fascinate  readers  for  years,  instead 
they  bored  them  to  death  by  the  preachments  of  single-track 
minds.  There  also  appear  radical  poems  by  the  classic  poets  of 
German  literature,  often  poets  in  whom  one  hardly  expects 
to  find  this  side,  as,  for  example,  in  Theodor  Storm.  The 
young  Schiller  is  quoted  often,  just  as  he  was  a  favorite  of  this 
generation  in  Germany,  where  they  said,  "Were  Schiller  living 
today,  he  would  be  a  socialist."  But  right  along  with  all  these 
radical  articles  there  appear  essays  on  esthetic  subjects  by  C.  W., 
Carl  Weiss,  of  Milwaukee,  a  lover  of  literature  and  the  arts, 


Robert  Reitzel  4.7 

who  would  have  none  of  sociaHsm.  There  is  found  also  under 
the  head  Also  so  herrlich  zveit  hatten  zvir  es  nun  gcbracht,  the 
following  from  the  Chemnitzer  Wochenhlatt:  "Verboten  wurde 
auf  Grund  des  Sozialistengesetzes  die  Nummer  14  des  laufenden 
Jahrgangs  von  der  Londoner  Freien  Presse,  ferner  die  laufen- 
den Nummern  86,  88,  93,  100,  104,  and  107  der  von  Robert 
Reitzel  redigierten  in  Detroit  (Nordamerika)  erscheinenden  pe- 
riodischen  Druckschrift  mit  der  Ueberschrift  Der  Arme  Teufel." 
Claude  Tillier's  Onkel  Benjamin  and  Meyer's  Der  Schusz  von  der 
Kanzel  api>ear  serially. 

In  the  fifth  volume  we  find  Henckell,  Mackay,  Seidel,  and 
other  writing  "fiir  den  A.  T."  Characteristic  of  Reitzel's  fair- 
mindedness  and  balance  is  the  way  in  which  he  handled  the 
subject  of  the  Russian  painter  Wassilli  Werestschagin.  This 
painter  of  the  horrors  of  war  is  now  safely  embalmed  in  the  his- 
tories of  art  as  quite  a  rhinor  light  of  no  lasting  significance,  but 
at  the  time  he  stirred  the  press  of  America  to  very  hot  contro- 
versies. Reitzel  did  not  condemn  him  nor  laud  him  to  the  skies, 
but  he  simply  printed  what  the  painter  himself  had  to  say  about 
his  then  new  technique.  On  the  first  of  May,  1889,  there  begin 
the  Reisebricfe,  the  vivid  descriptions  of  Reitzel's  visit  to  Ger- 
many. In  Germany  Reitzel  formed  a  close  and  lasting  friend- 
ship with  German  poets  of  his  generation  like  Henckell,  Mackay, 
Tarnuzzer,  and  others.  His  friendship  with  Georg  Michael  Con- 
rad began  later.  Auf  dem  Vierzvaldstdttersee,  a  fine  poem  by 
Henckell,  describing  a  boat  ride  these  friends  enjoyed  on  the 
historic  lake.  May,  1891,  Reitzel  was  again  jailed,  this  time  for 
speaking  in  the  interest  of  the  strikers  in  Detroit.  It  was  on  this 
occasion  that  he  printed  the  advertisement,  "Verlangt  im  Wayne 
County  Jail  von  7  Uhr  morgens  bis  Mitternacht  ein  drifter 
Mann  zum  Skat!"  Articles  from  Die  Gesellschaft,  Modernc 
Dichtung,  and  the  Nebelspalter,  appear.  Wedekind's  Friihlings- 
erwachen  is  favorably  commented  upon;  but  with  qualifica- 
,t)ions.  Stirner's  Der  Einziffe  nnd  sein  Eigentmn  is  reviewed. 
There  appear  Predigten  aiis  der  neiien  Bibel,  viz.,  Nietzsche's 
Also  sprach  Zarathustra.  These  articles  ran  through  more  than 
a  dozen  numbers.    There  was  a  strong  religious  feeling  in  Reit- 


48  Robert  Reit::el 

zel  just  as  there  was  in  the  whole  radical  Moderne,  the  school 
in  which  Kretzer's  Gcsicht  Christi  and  Uhde's  and  Gebhardt's 
paintings  of  Christ  in  a  modern  garb  appeared.  Reitzel  retold 
beautifully  many  biblisclie  Gcschichten  and  he  loved  Christ,  but 
not  the  Christ  of  the  catechism,  about  whom  he  spoke  the  clas- 
sic word,  "Philister  iiber  dir,  Jesus." 

Spring,  1894,  there  begins  the  series  Atn  Luginsland,  as 
Reitzel  called  the  window  before  his  Matrazengrtift.  The  paper 
has  now  become  much  more  sombre  and  much  more  literary, 
rather  than  religious  or  political.  Competitions  in  translation  are 
begun  among  the  readers;  the  first  verse  offered  as  a  test  was 
Dowling's 

*'Ho!  stand  to  your  glasses   steady, 
'Tis  all  we  have  left  to  prize, 
A  cup  to  the  dead  already, 
Hurrah  for  the  next  that  dies!" 

About  a  dozen  translations  were  sent  in  by  readers.  In 
June,  1895,  there  appear  Ruhcbricfc  von  Villa  Weidenlaiib,  the 
summer  home  of  Mr.  Karl  Schmidt,  a  trusty  friend  of  Reitzel. 
In  a  wonderful  article  Hcrbsttrainn,  Reitzel  pictures  in  the  words 
of  a  little  servant  boy  at  the  Inn  at  Stratford  the  last  years  of 
Shakespeare,  running  through  three  numbers.  Now  instead  of 
jolly  tales  about  his  lecture  tours  we  read  about  Die  Reise  um 
niein  Zimmer.  A  friend  sends  to  Reitzel,  then  for  years  on  his 
bed  of  suffering,  the  poems  of  Francois  Villon.  He  expresses 
his  thanks  for  them  and  adds,  "But  my  heart  yearns  for  the 
snows  of  yesteryear." 

It  was  on  the  night  of  April  i,  1898,  that  the  angel  with 
his  darker  draught  entered  Robert  Reitzel's  room,  and  in  this 
same  room  where  he  had  often  quaffed  gaily  with  many  compan- 
ions he  did  not  shrink  from  this  last  cup,  and  the  career  of  the 
Arme  Teiifel,  as  far  as  Robert  Reitzel  was  concerned,  was  at  an 
end.  Martin  Drescher  continued  it  for  about  two  years,  but 
without  the  force  of  Reitzel's  personality  the  paper  was  doomed. 
Three  months  after  Reitzel's  death  the  number  of  subscribers  had 
dwindled  to  two  thousand  seven  hundred,  which  compared  to 


Robert  Reitzel  49 

more  than  seven  thousand  during  Reitzel's  lifetime,  spelled  ruin. 
If  Reitzel  had  been  of  a  more  practical  disposition  he  could 
probably  have  made  a  fortune  out  of  his  paper,  but  his  Bo- 
hemian characteristics  caused  him  to  remain  a  "poor  devil"  all 
his  life.  Georg  Gottman,  whom  Reitzel  called  "der  Boss,"  was 
of  a  far  more  prosaic  disposition,  a  Sancho  Panza  unable  to 
follow  his  master's  poetic  flights,  but  he  must  be  given  great 
credit  for  keeping  the  business  end  of  the  paper  in  some  sort  of 
shape.  Reitzel  had  a  number  of  traveling  representatives  who 
toured  the  country  from  New  York  to  California — in  the  good 
old  days  of  railroad  passes.  "Polytlas"  Brand  was  a  faithful 
worker  in  this  capacity  for  many  years.  Many  of  these  agents 
defrauded  Reitzel,  as  one  might  expect  to  happen  where  such 
loose  business  methods  prevailed.  But  Dcr  arnie  Teufel  was 
never  troubled  very  much  by  such  losses,  it  was  his  nature  to 
bear  them  lightly  and  to  speak  generously  of  the  offenders. 


CHAPTER  III 

REITZEL's    position    in    GERMAN    LITERATURE 

Robert  Reitzel  is  an  anomaly  in  German-American  letters, 
inasmuch  as  he  is  no  anachronism.  He  is  part  and  parcel  of 
the  movement  in  the  'eighties,  Jiingstdeutschland,  Socialism  and 
Naturalism,  two  tendencies  which  are  not  intrinsically  related, 
but  which  we  see  side  by  side  in  German  writers  of  the  'eighties 
and  early  'nineties.  There  is  no  great  writer  in  this  period  who 
is  not  touched  at  some  time  or  other  by  both  of  these  tendencies. 
It  was  in  the  air,  an  inevitable  reaction  to  what  had  gone  before 
in  art,  as  well  as  of  the  economic  conditions  of  the  times.  The 
movements  unfolded  in  a  different  manner  in  each  individual 
writer,  most  of  whom  later  gained  a  position  beyond  the  stormy 
j>eriod  of  their  youth.  The  writers  most  closely  related  to  Reit- 
zel and  with  whom  he  must  be  grouped  are  Karl  Henckell,  John 
Henry  Mackay,  Bruno  Wille,  and  Reinhold  Maurice  von  Stern. 
All  of  them  were  contributors  to  Reitzel's  Arme  Teiifel,  and  the 
first  two  were  united  with  him  in  a  close  friendship.  Reitzel 
quoted  frequently  from  Moderne  Dichtercharaktere  and  Die 
Gesellschaft  in  turn  printed  many  contributions  from  Reitzel's 
pen. 

If  we  compare  Reitzel  to  Henckell  we  find  that  both — 
two  very  pugnacious  natures — are  fighting  for  the  iconoclastic 
ideals  of  the  day,  that  both,  especially  in  their  youth,  were 
strongly  influenced  by  Heine,  Lenau  and  Herwegh.  Both  are  for 
the  laborer  against  capitalism,  for  freedom  from  Kaiser  and 
militarism,  for  free  love  and  against  pruder\^  Lines  like  the  fol- 
lowing from  Henckell's  Ein  Lied  might  have  been  written  by 
Reitzel : 

"Ich  bin  ein  schwertgegiirteter, 

Vorkampfer  in  der  Schlacht, 

Ich  bin  ein  zartbemyrteter 

Spielmann  auf  stiller  Wacht, 

Protzt  die  Gelegenheit 

(50) 


Robert  Reitsel  51 

Bin  ich  zum  Hieb  bereit, 

Lieb  ich  ein  siiszes  Kind 

Wind'  ich  ein  Angebind ; 

Kein  Wahn  von  himmHschblinkender 

Unsterblichkeit  mich  narrt 

Ich  bin  ein  Zukunftwinkender 

Poet  der  Gegenwart." 

A  comparison  with  Reitzel's  poems  printed  elsewhere  in 
this  volume  shows  the  same  manner  of  picturing  the  self  as 
warrior,  minstrel,  lover,  pagan,  enemy  of  the  church,  and  leader 
of  men.  In  the  'nineties  both  poets  assume  a  much  more  gentle, 
resigned  tone,  but  Henckell's  was  a  more  flexible  spirit  than 
Reitzel's,  he  arrived  finally  after  his  period  of  storm  and  stress 
at  a  gentle  estheticism,  while  Reitzel  remained  ever  conscious 
of  his  ideals  as  a  fighter  for  freedom.  He  never  could  have 
written  the  verse  that  appeared  in  Henckell's  Zzvischenspid, 
1894: 

"Zeit  meiner  Ausrufkunst,  du  bist  vorbei, 
Nach  Lauschereinsamkeit  die  Seele  schmachtet    .     .     . 
Zuriickgezogen  in  den  Kreis  der  Kraft 
Geniig  ich  zarter  Dichterleidenschaft." 

This  note  is  typical  of  the  Jiingstdeutschen  in  the  'nineties, 
but  it  finds  only  a  faint  echo  in  Reitzel.  This  can  be  accounted 
for  by  his  character,  which  was  such  as  to  cling  most  stubbornly 
to  his  ideals,  the  fact  that  he  addressed  himself  for  fourteen 
years  to  much  the  same  circle  of  readers  as  editor  who  must 
stand  for  some  more  or  less  fixed  policy,  and  lastly  his  espousal 
of  anarchism,  which  made  him  a  propagandist  once  more. 

This  worship  of  Stirner,  Reitzel  had  in  common  with  John 
Henry  Mackay.  Both  men  are  chiefly  Gedankenlyriker.  As  to 
their  Weltanschauung,  both  pass  thru  about  the  same  phases, 
youthful  revolution,  intense  participation  in  the  events  during 
the  "anarchist  week"  in  Chicago,  and  finally  a  pessimistic  resig- 
nation.    The  joy  in  life  and  in  wine,  women,  and  song,  which 


52  Robert  Reitzel 

was  so  great  in  Reitzel,  seems  to  be  lacking  in  the  sombre 
Mackay. 

Another  great  agitator  with  a  longing  to  lead  men  aright 
in  the  'eighties  and  'nineties  was  Bruno  Wille,  whose  work, 
Einsiedler  und  Genosse,  appeared  in  1891.  He  was  an  ardent 
socialistic  speaker  in  Berlin  for  a  time,  like  Reitzel,  too,  he  was 
a  Sprecher  einer  freicn  Gemeinde,  and  wrote  many  social  poems. 
His  ideals  were  very  similar  to  Reitzel's ;  an  unhampered  devel- 
opment of  the  individual  personality,  and  the  avoidance  of  all 
coercion  in  education,  such  as  corporal  punishment,  uniformity, 
military  education  and  war,  prison  and  capital  punishment,  the 
use  of  any  kind  of  force  on  the  part  of  the  state,  exploitation 
of  labor,  and  government  by  caste  or  precedent.  Like  Reitzel, 
too,  he  later  on  renounced  allegiance  to  any  party.  The  party 
itself  covers  a  multitude  of  sins  like  tyranny,  intolerance,  selfish- 
ness, and  servility.  His  ideal  is  covered  neither  by  anarchism 
nor  by  communism,  but  strives  to  combine  the  best  in  social  and 
liberal  thought.  Reitzel's  words  about  "Das  letzte  Ideal"  invite 
comparison :^^  "Mit  einem  wehmiitigen  Bekenntnis  meiner  traur- 
igen  Lage  will  ich  schlieszen.  Wie  mir  die  Christen  am  Chris- 
tentum,  die  Sozialdemokraten  am  Sozialismus,  die  Anarchisten 
am  Anarchismus,  die  Freude  verleidet  haben,  so  geht's  mir 
jetzt  auch  mit  den  Individualisten."  However,  if  Reitzel  turned 
away  from  these  it  was  not  to  turn  to  new  theories,  but  to  act. 
His  was  not  a  philosophic  nature,  but  an  extremely  practical 
one. 

The  early  life  of  Maurice  von  Stern  shows  many  parallel- 
isms with  Reitzel's.  Both  came  to  America  in  their  early  youth, 
both  learned  here  by  bitter  experience  what  it  means  to  be  a 
proletarian,  and  both  founded  papers  in  America  with  socialistic 
tendencies.  Von  Stern's  Proletarierlieder  dcm  arbeitenden  Volke 
gewidmet  show  a  tendency  closely  related  to  Der  armc  Teiifel. 
But  Reitzel  had  nothing  of  the  ascetic  monk  in  his  full-blooded 
nature,  such  as  von  Stern  became  in  later  life,  nor  could  he  ever 


^  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  Zi^. 


Robert  Reitzel  53 

have  written  (in  a  serious  vein,  as  von  Stern  intended  the  verse 
to  be  taken) : 

"Zwar  fehlt  der  Wein,  die  Quelle  ist  mein  Wirt, 
Gottlob,  ein  Fleck  wo  nicht  gesoffen  wird ! 
Gottlob,  ein  Eiland  oline  Lagerbier! 
Ein  Mensch  der  trinkt  steht  tiefer  als  das  Tier," 

Reitzel  tells  in  his  essay  on  Walt  Whitman  that  in  his  Wash- 
ington days,  when  he  was  getting  the  first  inklings  of  his  later 
ideals  of  emancipation  of  the  flesh,  the  right  of  all  things  nat- 
ural, the  freedom  of  love  and  of  the  individual,  he  wrote  to  sev- 
eral German  poets  in  whom  he  recognized  kindred  spirits,  among 
them  Peter  Rosegger  and  Richard  Voss.  Later,  November,  1884, 
Reitzel  founded  his  organ  with  a  program  similar  to  that  of  the 
Gesellschaft,  founded  in  Munich  two  months  later,  and  of  Mod- 
erne  Dichtercharaktere ,  which  appeared  in  December,  1884.     It 
was  some  time  before  Reitzel  heard  of  the  other  publications — 
at  least  before  he  begins  to  quote   from  them — and  some  of 
Reitzel's  essays  appeared  in  Die  Gesellschaft.     Here  are  three 
children  of  one  mother — the  spirit  of  revolt  in  art  and  in  social 
life — all  of  them  full  of  the  fires  of  youth,  iconoclastic,  self- 
confident,  socialistic.    Naturally  Der  arnie  Teufel  must  suffer  in 
any  comparison  with  Die  Gesellschaft,  it  appears  as  quite  pro- 
vincial over  against  the  paper  to  which  all  the  great  younger 
poets  of   Germany  contributed,   the   coryphei  of   modern  Ger- 
man  literature,    Hauptmann,    Liliencron,    Dehmel,    Holz,    and 
others.    Its  scope  is  not  nearly  so  wide,  its  interests  more  revolu- 
tionary rather  than  artistic,   the  fight  against  the  church  and 
Aufkldrung  are  emphasized  much  more  strongly  in  Detroit  than 
in  the  city  of  artists  and  old  culture.    And  yet  their  basic  philos- 
ophy is  the  same,  both  manifestations  of  the  Zeitgeist.    This  will 
be  illustrated  in  a  comparison  of  Reitzel's  attitude  as  a  critic 
and  that  of  Die  Gesellsclmft.     The  material  printed  in  both  pa- 
pers was  similar;  short  stories,  poems,  plays,  reviews,  political, 
religious,  and  literary  essays,  correspondence  with  readers,  the- 
atrical and  musical  notices.     The  same  iconoclastic  note  and  the 
frische,  burschkikose  Ton  are  common  to  both.  Naturally  enough 


54 


Robert  Reitzel 


Der  arme   Teufel  was   much   more   modest   in   its   make-uj 
number  of  pages,  quality  of  paper,  illustrations,  etc. 

In  January,  1894,  Reitzel's  work  begins  to  appear  in  Die 
Gesellschaft.  We  notice,  "Zum  Kehraus  von  Robert  Reitzel. 
Vorbemerkung  der  Redaktion :  Unser  siiddeutscher  Landsmann 
Robert  Reitzel  gab  in  seiner  Wochenschrift  Der  arme  Teufel, 
eine  so  impressionistisch  f  rische  Schilderung  seines  Besuches  der 
Weltausstellung  in  Chicago,  dasz  wir  mit  des  Verfassers  giitiger 
Erlaubnis  unsere  Leser  gern  mit  diesem  hervorragenden  Pro- 
sastiick  deutschamerikanischer  Literatur  bekannt  machen."  One 
month  later:  "Das  letzte  Ideal.  Unter  dieser  Ueberschrift  bringt 
Robert  Reitzel  in  seiner  Wochenschrift  Der  arme  Teufel  eine 
fesselnde  politische  Plauderei.  Wir  teilen  daraus  folgende 
Stichproben  mit  .  .  .  Soweit  unser  pfalzisch-schwabischer 
Robert  Reitzel  in  seinem  deutschamerikanischen  Armen  Teufel. 
Gewisse  Renomistenhengste  der  modernen  Bewegung  mogen 
sich  seine  bitteren  Wahreiten  hinter  die  Ohren  schreiben."  In 
the  December  number  appeared  Reitzel's  essay.  Das  Recht  auf 
den  Tod.  Number  12  of  the  volume  of  the  year  1898  prints  a 
Nachruf,  by  Wilhelm  Spohr,  together  with  Reitzel's  portrait  and 
a  poem  by  Edna  Fern,  "Robert  Reitzel." 

Essays  such  as  the  above  mentioned  constitute  by  far  the 
greatest  part  of  Reitzel's  work.  Max  Baginski  has  collected 
out  of  the  files  of  the  Arme  Teufel  three  large  volumes  of 
them,  each  containing  about  five  hundred  pages.  These  essays 
are  written  in  a  brilliant,  forceful,  witty  style.  The  forceful- 
ness  of  his  expressions,  the  stormy  impatience  of  youth,  recall 
the  stormers  and  stressers  of  all  periods,  particularly  the  young 
enthusiasts  whose  revolutionary  essays  appeared  in  Die  Gesell- 
schaft, while  his  wit  which  had  at  its  command  the  entire  vast 
heritage  of  German  literature,  and  also  liked  to  indulge  in  un- 
exf)ected  anticlimaxes,  recalls  Heine.  However,  there  is  never 
the  filth  with  which  Heine  in  very  poor  taste  interlarded  his 
most  beautiful  works.  Moreover,  we  find  that  Reitzel  takes  his 
lifework  seriously,  and,  unlike  Heine,  does  not  feel  moved  to 
mock  his  own  works  by  ironical  conclusions.     As  a  character 


Robert  Reitzel 


55 


Reitzel  stands  far  above  Heine — one  need  only  read  of  his  visit 
to  his  father  on  his  return  to  Germany,  or  of  his  pious  filial 
regard  for  his  mother — while  as  a  brilliant  essayist  he  is  a 
close  rival  of  the  leading  "Feuilletonist"  of  German  literature. 
In  German-American  literature  he  is  by  far  the  greatest  artist 
this  country  has  seen. 

Unfortunately  as  yet  very  few  people  have  written  on  Rob- 
ert Reitzel,  but  the  few  who  have  are  unanimous  in  assigning  to 
him  the  first  place  in  German-American  letters.  Amalie  von 
Ende,  in  an  essay  appearing  in  May,  1899,  in  the  Literarisches 
Echo  says:  "Reitzel  founded  his  Arme  Teiifel,  this  precious 
enfant  terrible  of  German-American  journalism,  an  organ  which 
swore  allegiance  to  no  'ism'  whatsoever,  but  which  for  a  period 
of  fourteen  years  tossed  week  for  week  its  flaming  torch  into 
the  camp  of  philistinism  and  brought  to  its  friends  a  bouquet  of 
the  most  splendid  flowers  which  Reitzel  collected  in  the  garden 
of  world  poetry.  It  is  an  achievement  which  is  not  sufficiently 
recognized  that  it  was  Reitzel  who  introduced  the  German-Amer- 
ican public  to  Ada  Negri,  Detlev  von  Liliencron,  Bruno  Wille,  J. 
H.  Mackay,  Karl  Henckell,  Karl  Busse,  C.  J.  Bierbaum,  Lud- 
wig  Jacobowski,  and  many  others.  Reitzel  himself  was  the 
greatest  master  of  German  prose  whom  German- American  lit- 
erature has  produced.  His  Plaudereien,  whether  they  dealt  with 
Gottfried  Keller,  Hansjakob,  or  the  poet  of  Dreisehnlinden,  or 
the  charm  of  his  own  sick  room,  or  the  jolly  student  days  were 
unique  {einzig  in  Hirer  Art).  He  himself  confessed  rather  sadly 
that  his  lyric  poetry  was  recognized  but  little  beside  his  prose." 
The  introductory  essay  by  Max  Baginski  in  the  three-vol- 
ume edition  of  Reitzel  is  the  best  that  has  thus  far  been  writ- 
ten on  Der  Arme  Teufel.  He  says:^"*  "Dieser  Sonnenwanderer 
durchtrankte  sein  und  vieler  anderer  Dasein  mit  Poesie,  mit  ta- 
tenfroher  Poesie,  die  durchaus  keinem  Zeitproblem  aus  dem 
Wege  ging,  das  dichteste,  heisseste  Kampfgwiihl  am  liebsten  auf- 
suchte." 


"  Cesammelte  Werkt,  Vol.  I,  p.  31. 


56  Robert  Reitzel 

"Alle  Lust,  alle  Freude  der  Welt  wollte  er  unarmen,  aber 
audi  alles  Leid  der  Welt  drang  zu  seinem  Herzen.  Die  Bilder, 
Essays,  welche  er  aus  dieser  Mischung  in  seinem  Blatt  gewoben 
hat,  sind  das  Beste  was  im  deutschamerikanischen  Schrifttum 
hervorgebracht  worden  ist.  Es  sind  herrliche  Streifziige  durch 
Leben,  Welt,  Literatur  darunter,  die  als  zu  den  kostbarsten 
Perlen  deutschen  Schrifttums  gehdrend  betrachtet  vverden  mo- 
gen,  wenn  sie  erst  hier  und  in  Deutschland  zuganglich  und  be- 
kannt  geworden  sind." 

Furthermore:  "Mit  Heine  ist  Reitzel  oft  verglichen  worden. 
Ein  Zusatz  Boerne  wiirde  nichts  schaden.  Seine  eigene  Art 
ware  aber  damit  noch  nicht  geniigend  bezeichnet.  D'en  klassikern 
bewahrte  er  unwandelbare  Treue,  doch  war  er  auch  Fleisch  vom 
Fleische  des  jiingsten  Deutschlands,  das  Holz,  Henckell,  Panizza, 
Mackay,  Wille,  Hartleben,  Hauptmann,  Wedekind  hervorge- 
bracht hat." 

Martin  Drescher  writes  in  a  study  on  German-American 
poets  in  Dr.  Singer's  Jahrbuch  fiir  191 7  :  "Unbestritten  war  Rob- 
ert Reitzel  unter  den  deutschamerikanischen  Schriftstellern  der 
letzten  Jahrzehnte  der  grosste  Stilst;  er  war  auch  einer  der  ge- 
dankenreichsten.  Souveran  wie  der  grosse  Virtuose  sein  Instru- 
ment beherrscht,  beherrscht  er  die  deutsche  Sprache.  Fiir  jede 
Empfindung  die  auf  ein  Menschenherz  eindringen  kann,  fand  er 
mit  bewundernswerter  Feinheit  das  treff ende  Wort :  fiir  das  erste 
Erwachen  scheuer,  keuscher  Liebe,  wie  fiir  den  leidenschaftlichen 
Schmerz  der  Emporung.  Er  war  vornehmlich  ein  Dichter  in 
Prosa  dessen  Skizzen  und  Schilderungen,  dessen  Erinnerungen 
und  Bekenntnisse  nicht  so  bald  vergehen.  Aber  auch  von  seinen 
Versen  konnen  manche  sich  getrost  den  besten  Erzeugnissen  der 
deutschamerikanischen  Literatur  an  die  Seite  stellen." 

Two  of  Reitzel's  longer  works  are  Abenteiier  eines  Griincn 
and  Ein  Herbsttraum.  The  former  are  the  memories  of  his  first 
years  in  America  as  tramp,  day-laborer,  minister,  ending  with 
his  attempt  at  church  reformation.  The  style  is  extremely  droll, 
suggesting  Fritz  Renter  or  Claude  Tillier,  and  it  is  written  not 
as  Dichhing  tmd  Wahrkeit,  but  his  real  experiences  are  por- 
trayed with  Rousseauan  frankness.     Besides  being  one  of  the 


Robert  Reitzel  57 

most  entertaining  books  of  its  kind,  it  stands  as  a  fine  piece  of 
Kultiirgcschichtc.  The  second  work  is  an  imaginative  picture  of 
Shakespeare  in  his  last  years  in  Stratford.  Reitzel  dreams  that 
he  is  the  servant-boy  in  the  tavern  which  Shakespeare  visits  daily. 
Reitzel's  Shakespeare  has  more  real  flesh  and  blood  about  him 
than  Tieck's  rather  too  sensible  figure  in  his  Dichterlehen.  The 
joy  in  life  of  this  great  genius  is  very  powerfully  contrasted 
with  the  Puritanism  of  his  environment,  which  is  especially  op- 
pressing and  hypocritical  in  the  poet's  own  family.  The  style  is 
naturalistic,  vivid,  but  the  whole  is  somewhat  loosely  joined  to- 
gether— as  one  might  expect  a  dream  to  be.  The  Novelle  was 
not  Reitzel's  forte,  he  excelled  more  in  the  essay,  especially  the 
Plauderei. 

The  influence  of  Robert  Reitzel  among  the  Germans  in 
America  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  great.  His  attacks  on 
religion  made  impossible,  of  course,  any  contact  with  the  Kir- 
chendeutsche  who  are  far  more  orthodox  in  this  land  of  religious 
liberty  than  the  believers  in  their  respective  creeds  in  Germany, 
while  his  ridicule  of  philistinism  lost  for  him  the  sympathy  of 
many  "free-thinkers"  who  would  readily  have  forgiven  him  his 
lack  of  godliness.  Thus  the  Arme  Teiifel  Gemeinde  could  not 
but  be  a  small  select  circle  composed  of  authors,  lovers  of  lit- 
erature, socialists,  anarchists,  bohemians — anything  but  the 
Prominentcn.  We  might  mention  Edna  Fern,  for  years  a  con- 
tributor to  the  paper,  Martin  Drescher,  who  continued  the  paper 
for  some  time  after  Reitzel's  death,  Dr.  Tobias  Sigel  and 
Mr.  Karl  Schmidt,  of  Detroit,  the  latter  Reitzel's  kind  host  at 
"Villa  Weidenlaub,"  on  Lake  Orion,  in  Canada;  Mr.  John 
Meyer,  of  Mt.  Clemens,  a  great  disciple  of  Haeckel;  Mr.  Carl 
Weiss,  of  Milwaukee,  who  despised  socialism,  but  loved  litera- 
ture and  esthetics ;  Mr.  Ernst  Kurzenknabe,  secretary  of  a  labor- 
ers' union;  Emma  Goldman,  the  noted  anarchist — these  are  some 
of  the  more  intimate  friends  of  Reitzel,  just  a  few  picked  at 
random.  There  were  Arme  Teiifel  Klnbs  in  Toledo,  Pittsburgh, 
Cincinnati,  St.  Louis  and  other  places,  where  two  or  three  as- 
sembled in  Reitzel's  name  to  engage  in  the  study  of  the  best  in 
literature  and  to  work  for  liberty  of  body  and  soul.     One  is 


58  Robert  Reitsel 

apt  to  come  across  men  engaged  in  everyday  pursuits,  such  as 
Conrad  Schweier  in  St.  Louis,  a  house-painter,  but  for  many 
years  a  reader  of  Der  arme  Teufel,  filled  with  its  spirit  of  the 
cult  of  the  beautiful  and  the  genuine  in  art,  as  well  as  with 
broad  human  sympathy  for  all  those  oppressed.  And  if  one 
glances  at  the  library  of  such  readers  of  Reitzel  one  finds  the 
classics  well  worn,  Claude  Tillier's  Onkel  Benjamin,  Weber's 
Dreiaehnlinden,  Gottfried  Keller,  der  Bauern-philosoph  Deubler, 
Alfred  Meiszner  and  other  poets  of  freedom — all  the  books  that 
Reitzel  loved.  Just  how  widely  this  cultural  influence  of  Reit- 
zel extended,  can,  of  course,  never  be  estimated,  probably  not 
far  into  the  masses  at  all,  but  wherever  Reitzel  carried  the  mes- 
sage of  the  world's  best  literature  he  brought  the  very  finest, 
and  his  influence  might  be  said  to  have  been  deep  rather  than 
broad.  Much  less  can  we  measure  the  influence  of  Reitzel  as  an 
author,  but  wherever  he  was  read  he  fostered  a  yea-saying 
philosophy  of  life,  hatred  of  all  shams  and  conventions,  broad 
human  sympathy,  and  above  all  tolerance,  Christlike  tolerance, 
knocking  the  props  from  under  any  "holier  than  thou"  atti- 
tude. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CRITIC  AND  POPULARIZER  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE. 

Der  arme  Teufel  leads  German-American  publications  in 
the  number  of  modern  German  poets  which  it  introduced  to  its 
readers.  Tho  the  paper  was  extremely  radical  its  critical  stand- 
ard was  far  from  being  a  narrow  one.  It  was  fortunate,  in- 
deed, that  Reitzel  had  a  liberal  judgment  in  literature,  a  catho- 
lic taste,  real  appreciation  of  the  classics,  combined  with  a  keen 
eye  for  new  works  of  lasting  value.  He  deserves  great  credit 
for  his  critical  ability  which  was  all  that  could  be  desired,  ex- 
cept that  he  had  no  appreciation  for  art  for  art's  sake.  In  this 
respect,  I  think  it  must  be  said,  that  much  formal  beauty,  won- 
derful word  music  and  word  painting  escaped  him  in  works  in 
which  the  subject  was  morbid.  He  was  far  too  robust  and 
healthy  to  appreciate  fully,  for  example,  Poe,  because  the  thought 
often  attracted  him  more  than  the  form.  But  a  man's  prin- 
ciples, religion,  or  political  position  never  interfered  in  the  least 
with  Reitzel's  appreciation  of  his  works.  Almost,  tho  not  quite, 
nil  humani  ei  alienum. 

Reitzel  gives  us  his  standard  of  criticism  in  an  essay  on 
Eduard  Dorsch.^^^  "Von  einem  Dichter  verlange  ich  nicht  nur, 
dasz  er  sein  Volk  in  seinem  besten  Fiihlen  wiedergibt,  die 
Grosztaten  derselben  durch  die  Verherrlichung  seiner  Saiten 
fijr  die  Nachwelt  fixiert,  sondern  auch  dasz  er  seinem  Volke 
geistig  vorausschreitet,  dasz  er  die  Forderungen  jener  ver- 
schwindenden  Minoritat,  die  stets  an  wahrhaft  republikanischer 
Menschenwiirde  festhalt,  auf  sein  Banner  schreibt."  In  accord 
with  these  ideas  he  placed  Lessing,  Goethe,  Schiller,  very  high. 
Freytag,  the  servant  of  existing  religion  and  state  he  believes 
will  sink  into  oblivion  before  long,  while  Renter  and  Keller 
will  live.  He  praises  Arno  Holz  for  opening  new  fields  for 
poetry  and  calls  Liliencron  echt,  a  quality  which  he  must  love, 
tho  politically  he  is  the  militarist's  opponent.  To  this  we  must 
add  another  chief  characteristic  of  Reitzel's  criticisms,  he  de- 


'  Der  arme  Teufel,  May  23,  1895. 

(59) 


6o  Robert  Reitzel 

manded  imagination,  seeing  the  great  in  little  things  i^^  "Phan- 
tasie — es  ist  aber  nur  die  Liebe,  die  ein  gutes  Gedachtnis  hat 
und  all  die  kleinen  Freuden  zusammentragt,  die  wie  Sonnen- 
lichter  durch's  Erdenleben  huschen,  sich  und  andern  zum  Er- 
gotzen."  This  Reitzel  found  in  Jean  Paul,  Claude  Tillier,  Charles 
Lamb,  Fritz  Reuter,  and  others. 

To  illustrate  his  manner  I  shall  quote  some  examples  of 
Reitzel's  criticisms,  more  fully  of  those  poets  who  are  closely 
related  to  Reitzel. 

"To  write  w;ith  authority  about  another  man,  we  must  have 
fellow-feeling  and  some  common  ground  of  experience  with  our 
subject,"  thus  writes  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  in  the  essay  on 
his  fellow  countryman,  Bobby  Burns.  No  man  ever  had  a 
greater  right  to  judge  of  Heinrich  Heine  than  did  Robert  Reitzel, 
for  not  only  the  outward  courses  of  their  lives,  from  their  ex- 
patriation to  the  Matratsengruft  are  very  similar,  but  their  ideals 
and  their  writings  are  very  much  alike — Reitzel  was  in  some 
phases  a  follower  of  Heine.  As  Stevenson  does  with  Burns,  so 
Reitzel  with  Heine — gives  us  a  sympathetic  picture  of  the  man, 
not  a  bust  of  gold,  but  a  life-size  portrait  including  the  feet 
which  were  of  clay. 

Hours  of  Devotion  with  Heinrich  Heine  "^  is  the  title 
which  Reitzel  gives  to  his  essay,  knowing  very  well  the  little  shock 
which  this  must  cause  the  gentle  reader.  No  one  would  have 
enjoyed  this  title  more  than  Heine  himself  whose  name  calls 
up  in  the  imagination  of  every  German,  says  Reitzel,  a  smiling 
bed  of  roses  hedged  in  by  thorny  thistles.  Even  if  we  must 
object  to  very  much  in  Heine  on  artistic  as  well  as  on  moral 
grounds,  yet  we  can  be  sure  that  he  will  always  be  read,  a  fate 
really  preferable  to  that  of  Klopstock,  whom  everybody  praises, 
but  no  one  reads. 

Heine  has  thought  very  deeply  on  the  stupendous  riddles 
of  this  life.  His  religious  views  form  the  special  field  of  in- 
vestigation for  Reitzel  in  this  essay,  as  he  suggests  in  the  title. 
These  views  we  find  expressed  very  frankly — only  too  frankly. 

"  Der  arme  Teufel,  May  23,  1895. 

"  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II.    Cf.  Essays  on  different  poets  mentioned. 


Robert  Reitzel  6i 

When  other  poets  in  some  solemn  hour  cast  their  finest  feelings 
into  eternal  form,  they  know  enough  to  suppress  any  Mephisto- 
phelean quips  that  might  momentarily  lead  their  minds  from 
the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous,  but  Heine  spoils  many  of  his 
poems  by  giving  his  entire  self  with  all  his  inconsistencies,  all 
his  follies  and  paradoxes.  Reitzel  calls  this  not  laudable  hon- 
esty, but  rather  the  vanity  of  a  spoilt  child  which  considers  it- 
self irresistibly  charming  even  in  its  weaknesses. 

With  a  deep  poetic  insight  Reitzel  analyzes  this  character — 
a  glowing  republican  and  at  the  same  time  doing  homage  before 
the  mysterious  augustness  of  the  legitimate  kings;  proclaiming 
communistic  brotherhood  of  man  and  willing  to  share  the  bed 
of  a  poor  laborer,  yet  the  very  next  moment  indignant  to  be 
forced  to  endure  the  handshake  of  some  callous  fist ;  today  sing- 
ing of  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  a  new  age,  yet  tomorrow 
ruing  the  passing  of  the  days  of  medieval  romance.  For  Heine 
is  a  poet,  and  the  poet  loves  every  kind  of  beauty,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  is  the  natural  vindicator  of  all  that  is  suppressed, 
defeated,  and  passed  away.  These  things  he  paints  in  pious 
devotion  with  the  richest  colors  of  his  imagination.  Tho  his 
old  orthodoxy  be  a  thing  of  the  past  and  he  stand  in  the  thick 
of  the  battle  for  the  new  light  of  freedom,  yet  the  religion  of 
his  childhood  has  certain  poetic  rights,  and  his  heart  will  ever 
be  touched  by  the  memory  of  these  years  in  paradise.  We  must 
not  be  led  astray  by  the  fact  that  now  Heine  kneels  in  ardent 
prayer  before  the  heavenly  Madonna,  now  praises  the  gratify- 
ing light  of  Protestantism,  and  again  as  the  son  of  his  people 
wails  in  stirring  notes  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, — for  his  true  con- 
fession of  faith  is  found  in  the  words:  "The  religion  of  the 
future  is  liberty." 

No  zealous  prophet  of  ancient  Israel  could  have  made  a 
more  forceful  plea  for  liberty  for  the  lowly  than  is  to  be  found 
in  the  scathingly  bitter  Song  of  the  Weavers  who  with  a  triple 
curse  to  God,  the  king,  and  the  fatherland,  are  weaving  the 
shroud  of  Germany.  This  injustice  of  God — or  inconsistency 
as  he  called  it — Heine  was  unable  to  comprehend.  Yet  in  his 
own  life  he  experienced  that  a  poetic  soul  with  longing   for 


62  Robert  Reitzel 

flowers,  sunshine,  and  the  rustling  of  the  woods  could  be  buried 
in  a  mattress-grave  for  ten  long,  creeping  years.  Reitzel  ad- 
mires him  for  not  losing  his  humor  in  this  time  of  trial,  little 
knowing  that  there  awaited  him  a  similar  mattress-grave. 

Heine  tells  of  Kant  that  after  the  publication  of  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  the  philosopher's  old  servant,  Lampe,  went 
about  with  a  very  said  mien.  Questioned  by  Kant,  he  confesesd 
that  he  felt  so  badly  because  the  professor  had  thrust  God  from 
his  throne.  Out  of  pity  for  his  faithful  servant,  Kant  then 
wrote  the  Practical  Reason  in  which  he  again  reinstated  God 
in  all  his  former  honor  and  glory.  In  this  story,  intended  as  a 
bit  of  persiflage  at  the  expense  of  Kant,  Reitzel  sees  a  persiflage 
at  the  expense  of  Heine  himself.  For  in  spite  of  his  seeming 
frivolity  he  had  in  his  heart  such  an  old  servant,  Lampe  who 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  return  to,  or  at  least  often  to 
long  for  the  faith  in  God  of  his  childhood.  The  most  drastic 
example  is  the  preface  to  Romancero. 

The  current  anthropomorphic  notions  of  God,  of  heaven, 
and  of  hell  are  frequent  targets  of  Heine's  wit.  Conscious  of 
the  power  of  the  poets  he  says  that  the  real,  everlasting  hell 
is  the  one  in  which  the  poets  have  the  authority  to  imprison 
the  unworthy.  Whom  Dante  puts  into  his  hell,  no  God  can 
rescue.  But  to  avoid  hell  from  motives  of  fear,  or  to  seek 
heaven  as  a  reward,  is  a  notion  that  is  very  repulsive  to  Heine. 
He  seeks  the  good,  because  it  is  beautiful,  and  attracts  him, 
he  avoids  the  bad,  because  it  is  ugly  and  repels  him.  Such 
pearls  of  wisdom,  says  Reitzel,  which  others  would  expand  into 
volumes,  Heine  tosses  out  in  the  tone  of  casual  conversation. 
He  does  not  consider  the  idea  of  immortality  conducive  to  a 
moral  life,  on  the  other  hand  it  has  always  been  a  means  of 
poisoning  this  life  for  the  people  by  lulling  them  to  sleep  thru 
the  preaching  of  otherworldliness.  In  the  words  of  Homer, 
Heine  would  rather  be  the  meanest  slave  in  this  life  than  a 
famous  hero  in  Pluto's  realm.  But  his  love  of  life  did  not 
cause  him  to  fear  death.  He  looked  upon  death  as  a  pleasant 
slumber  which  we  do  not  flee,  but  which  we  yearn  for.  Life  is 
a  sultry  day,  death  is  a  cool  night,  and  the  poet  is  drowsy,  the 


Robert  Reitzel  63 

day  has  made  him  tired,  Reitzel  pictures  Heine  looking  back 
upon  life's  fitful  fever  satisfied  with  his  day's  work,  his  last 
wish  granted :  not  to  be  buried  with  Christian  or  Jewish  cere- 
monies, but  to  have  a  sword  placed  in  his  coffin,  for  he  died 
as  a  brave  soldier  in  the  war  of  liberation  for  humanity. 

Far  from  excusing  Heine  for  his  faults,  for  example,  his 
vanity,  to  which  he  sacrificed  almost  anything  merely  to  shine 
by  his  wit  for  the  moment,  his  uncalled  for  bitter  attacks  on 
the  Jews,  his  baptism  at  the  age  of  twenty-six  merely  to  gain 
a  little  in  social  position — Reitzel  pictures  him  just  as  he  was 
with  his  low  motives  which  he  confesses  himself  with  Rous- 
seauan  frankness.  But  it  in  no  way  spoils  for  Reitzel  the  true 
worth  of  the  man,  this  German  Aristophanes,  the  jubilant  icono- 
clast ruthlessly  destroying  the  old  order  of  things  and  at  the 
same  time  creating  the  new :  "Away  with  the  poetry  of 
the  old  religion,  it  is  stained  with  blood.  Bring  me  the  prose 
of  materialism  with  its  attendant  plenty  for  all  mankind.  Out 
of  this  material  happiness  there  will  grow  another  form  of 
poetry  more  beautiful  than  the  old  and  pregnant  with  life," 
therein  is  contained  Heine's  religion. 

In  1894  there  was  considerable  discussion  in  Germany 
whether  or  not  a  monument  ought  to  be  erected  to  Heine  in 
the  city  of  Mainz._  Many  of  the  leading  authors  of  Germany 
spoke  against  this  plan.  Reitzel  was  disgusted.  In  an  article 
in  which  he  quotes  many  of  these  opinions  he  says,  "Of  all 
that  ridiculous  rabble  on  which  Heine  during  his  lifetime  poured 
out  the  vials  of  his  satire  not  one  species  has  died  out.  O  you 
poor  German  nation,  give  your  mites  to  the  national  orphan's 
home  or  the  army  saving  fund,  you  do  not  need  a  Heine  monu- 
ment !" 

I  have  quoted  at  length  what  Reitzel  writes  of  Heine  in 
order  to  give  a  good  example  of  his  manner.  In  the  following 
pages  is  found  what  Reitzel  had  to  say  of  other  authors  in 
much  briefer  form,  only  some  of  the  most  characteristic  points 
being  mentioned.  If  we  compare  this  with  the  criticism  of 
the  Gesellschaft  which  placed  Zola  and  other  naturalists  very 
high,  was  somewhat  doubtful  as  to  Schiller,  looked  askance  at 


64  Robert  Reitzel 

Dahn  and  Ebcrs,  elevated  once  more  to  the  position  in  which 
they  deserve  to  be  placed  the  three  great  poets  of  a  former 
generation,  Keller,  Raabe,  and  Storm — v^^e  see  that  Reitzel  was 
very  much  a  man  of  his  time. 

We  have  mentioned  above  that  Karl  Henckell  and  Reitzel 
are  closely  related  in  their  ideals  and  their  works.  When  Henck- 
ell's  Amselriifc  appear,  Reitzel  exclaims  that  for  a  second  time 
Lieder  eines  Lebendigen  have  gone  out  into  the  world.  Henckell 
has  pledged  his  genius  to  work  for  the  emancipation  of  hu- 
manity. Reitzel  does  not  care  particularly  for  his  love  poems 
in  the  style  of  Heine  or  Lenau,  but  he  admires  those  in  which 
new  naturalistic  turns  manifest  the  poet  of  the  day.  Henckell's 
demand  for  "das  Recht  der  Sinnlichkeit"  finds  an  echo  in  Reit- 
zel, as  well  as  the  honesty  of  the  social  poets  which  causes  him 
to  make  fun  of  his  own  sentimental  poems  by  adding  as  a 
"note  by  the  printer"  that  they  sell  more  readily  than  poems 
picturing  the  distress  of  the  victims  of  society.  Of  this  latter 
kind  Reitzel  quotes  a  few  picturing  the  salvation  army  or  the 
Christmas  of  the  poor : 

"Der  Kaiser  rief:     Reserve  her 
Ins  died,  getreue  Herden ! 
Allein  Gott  in  der  Hoh  sei  Ehr! 
Schlagt  an  das  Repetiergewehr, 
Und  Friede  sei  auf  Erden!" 

He  calls  Henckell  a  satirist  with  new  notes  whose  signifi- 
cance is  to  be  found  chiefly  in  his  social,  polemic,  and  political 
poetry.  "Es  braust  dahin  als  ob  Herwegh  und  Heine  sicli  in 
einem  Kopf e  vereinigt  hatten  und  doch  wieder  ganz  anders !" 

This  was  written  before  Reitzel  had  met  Henckell.  In  the 
course  of  his  European  journey  Reitzel  formed  a  close  and 
lasting  friendship  with  Henckell.  Together  they  took  a  boat 
trip  on  the  Vierzvaldstdtterscc ,  an  occasion  which  Henckell  made 
memorable  in  a  poem  which  appeared  in  the  Anne  Tcufel.  The 
two  found  in  1889  a  unique  agreement  as  to  their  ideals,  but 
Henckell  changed  his  position  before  long,  as  we  have  seen, 
and  perhaps  it  is  not  accidental  that  no  poems  by  this  frequent 


Robert  Reitzel  65 

contributor  to  the  Armc  Teufel  are  to  be  found  in  the  last  three 
volumes. 

One  and  the  same  event  was  the  inspiration  for  many  of 
Reitzel's  best  essays  as  well  as  of  a  book  by  John  Henry  Mackay 
— the  occurrences  in  Chicago  in  1886.  Die  Anarchisten  is  not 
the  only  work  by  this  Scotch-German  poet  dealing  with  the 
Haymarket  events,  but  he  also  wrote  a  number  of  poems  for  the 
Arme  Teufel  which  deal  with  those  labor  leaders.  Mackay's 
Sturm  was  also  reviewed  by  Reitzel.  He  does  not  find  in  it 
the  manysidedness  of  Henckell,  but  the  ensuing  monotony  is  like 
the  monotony  of  the  sea  or  the  eternal  mountains,  when  he 
reads  these  powerful  outbursts  of  a  lone,  proud  heart,  it  recalls 
to  him  the  glowing  eyes  of  his  friend  in  Ziirich,  a  man  who  is 
honest  to  the  core,  who  can  rightly  say  of  himself  that  he  has 
never  uttered  a  single  lie,  but  always  spoke  the  truth  as  he  saw 
it.  Reitzel  says  that  two  lines  prove  how  close  this  poet  who 
always  loses  himself  in  melancholy,  resigned  reflections  on 
death,  stands  to  the  questions  of  the  day : 
"Ich  bin  ein  Anarchist!  Warum?  Ich  will 
Nicht  herrschen,  aber  auch  beherrscht  nicht  werden." 
Maurice  Reinhold  von  Stern  was  for  some  time  a  con- 
tributor to  Reitzel's  paper,  but  when  this  social  poet  turned  her- 
mit and  prohibitionist  he  was  ridiculed  in  an  article  headed  Den 
tapfere  Maurice  und  der  sanftc  Reinhold.  Reitzel  never  quar- 
reled with  a  poet  for  his  "Weltanschauung,"  but  a  revolutionist 
turning  into  a  reactionary  was  to  him  an  abomination.  The 
same  reason  caused  the  break  between  Reitzel  and  his  erstwhile 
friend,  Konrad  Nies.  Reitzel  took  his  position  as  an  enemy 
of  society  seriously,  not  as  a  role  to  be  adopted  or  dropped  at 
will  by  the  poet  as  the  occasion  suited.  Konrad  Nies,  as  we 
have  mentioned,  edited  a  paper  Deutschamerikanische  Dich- 
tung  for  a  year  or  so.  Reitzel  says  he  is  certainly  no  modern 
poet,  his  verses  could  have  been  written  a  hundred  years  ago. 
"Ein  Dichter  unsrer  Zeit"  is  what  he  calls  Herwegh  whom 
Reitzel  revered  for  clinging  firmly  to  his  old  republican  ideals. 
This  pride  made  Herwegh  a  man  after  Reitzel's  heart,  just  like 
Uhland,  who  refused  any  decoration  from  the  king  against 
whom  he  had  written. 


66  Robert  Reitzel 

If  he  were  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in  solitude  and  be 
allowed  but  two  books,  says  Reitzel,  he  would  select  Shake- 
speare and  the  Bible.  This  selection  was  made  also  by  Heine,  I 
believe,  and  others  possibly  have  said  the  same.  With  Reitzel 
it  seems  to  have  been  no  echoing  of  the  words  of  others,  but 
these  two  books  were  indeed  his  very  best  friends.  About 
Shakespeare  he  has  written  the  Herbsttraum,  which  we  men- 
tioned above,  as  well  as  two  other  essays,  VVenn  man  Shake- 
speare liest  and  Percy  Heiszsporn.  The  deep  knowledge  of  life 
this  Elizabethan  possesses,  his  robustness,  his  truthfulness  all 
attract  Reitzel.  He  thinks  it  is  a  sign  of  how  much  Shakespeare 
loved  his  Percy  that  he  has  put  into  his  mouth  the  words : 

"O  while  you  live,  tell  truth  and  shame  the  devil !" 

Even  more  vivid  and  fascinating  than  Reitzel's  sketches 
about  the  characters  of  Shakespeare  are  his  Bible  stories  retold, 
retold  rather  freely.  It  is  quite  characteristic  that  he  finds  little  to 
praise  in  Ruth  and  much  to  excuse  in  Judas. 

Goethe's  poetry,  he  says,  is  not  one  special  faculty,  not  lim- 
ited to  this  or  that  field,  no,  it  is  the  voice  of  harmonious  man- 
hood, just  as  allcompromising  as  vast  nature  herself.  Goethe 
is  one  of  those  eternal  stars,  in  quiet,  not  flickering  splendor, 
revolving  about  its  own  axis,  and  which  will  shine  until  the 
great  world  revolution  will  cast  our  entire  world  revelation 
into  other  forms.  In  an  essay  on  Goethe's  ballads  he  says  that 
they  differ  from  Schiller's  inasmuch  as  Goethe  gives  us  no 
ideas,  but  simply  a  bit  of  the  world,  without  reflections  or 
morals  added  by  the  poet.  In  speaking  of  the  question  of 
Tendenz  or  art  for  art's  sake,  Reitzel  holds  it  futile  to  quarrel, 
for  we  have  many  fine  examples  of  both  kinds  of  poetry,  and 
both  justify  their  existence  by  their  beauty.  Perhaps  it  was  too 
much  quarrel  with  the  church  that  prevented  Reitzel's  seeing 
the  Grimm-fairy-tale-like  drollery  in  the  VVandelnde  Glockc, 
in  which  the  bell  sets  out  to  call  the  truant  child  to  church,  "die 
Glocke  kommt  gewackelt."  That  this  child  morality  is  life  just 
as  much  as  the  ballads  that  speak  a  word  for  humanity,  must 
have  escaped  Reitzel,  for  he  calls  this  Goethe's  weakest  ballad. 


Robert  Reitzel  67 

He  loved  Der  Fischer  best  of  all  the  poems  of  Goethe.  Like- 
wise he  praised  highly  those  ballads  which  assert  the  right  of 
real  love  against  the  conventions  of  society  or  of  sensuality 
against  Christian  asceticism.  "Gedankenlyrik"  if  not  "Pole- 
mik"  was  Reitzel's  forte,  and  for  it  too,  he  had  the  keenest 
appreciation. 

I  should  like  to  insert  here  a  paragraph  in  which  Reitzel 
speaks  characteristically  of  the  three  German  classic  drama- 
tists:^^ "Drei  reinste,  gelauterte  Dramen  der  Menschenliebe, 
der  Humanitat,  haben  wir  zu  denen  nach  jeder  Revolution  und 
jeder  Reaktion  der  Deutsche  immer  wieder  zuriickkehren  wird 
wie  zum  Rauschen  des  Waldes  und  zum  Anblick  der  ewigen 
Gestirne:  Lessing's  Nathan,  Goethe's  Iphigenie,  Schiller's  Don 
Carlos.  Alle  drei  symbolisch,  Gedankenprodukte,  das  Geschicht- 
liche  nur  Maske,  die  Handlung  unwahrscheinlich ;  in  den  beiden 
ersten  fehlt  das  dramatische  Leben,  das  dritte  ist  rhetorisch 
iibertrieben.  Aber  die  hochste  Errungenschaft  des  Menschlichen, 
die  Resignation  um  der  echten  Liebe  Willen,  das  Verzichten  auf 
den  rohen  Erfolg,  der  Sieg  des  auch  durch  die  Offenbarungen 
der  Kunst  veredelten  Menschen  ist  in  alien  dreien.  Die  Men- 
schenliebe im  Nathan  ist  religiose  Toleranz  zwischen  Nation 
und  der  Ausblick  auf  das  iiber  den  Religionen  stehende 
Verstandnis  des  Ewigen ;  in  Iphigenie  die  sittigende,  siihnende, 
fluchlosende  Kraft  der  Liebe;  in  Don  Carlos  politisch,  volker- 
befreiend,  Staat  auf  Menschenwiirde  griindend,  machtig  ins  All- 
gemeine  wirkend.  Trager  im  Natlian  ein  Greis,  im  Don  Carlos 
ein  Jiingling-Mann,  in  Iphigenie  echt  Goethisch,  eine  Jung- 
frau."3« 

Quite  in  contrast  with  this  is  his  view  of  some  Roman- 
ticists (De  la  Motte  Fouque  in  particular):  "Ach  die  stolzen 
Rittergeschichten,  die  Heldenfahrten  unserer  germanischen  Vor- 
fahrer  von  der  Ostsee  bis  zum  goldenen  Horn,  die  lichtbraunen 
Rosslein  und  die  mondscheinaugigen  minniglichen  Frauen!  Dass 
uns  die  historische  Aufifassung  des  Mittelalters  durch  diese  Ro- 
mane  vollstandig  verfalscht  wurde,  konnten  wir  in  unserer  Ju- 
gend  nicht  ahnen." 

°*  This  is  an  expansion  of  a  passage  from  Vischer's  Auch  Einer. 


68  Robert  Reitsel 

A  strong  unbending  character  like  Seume,  the  advocate  of 
healthy  revolution,  as  an  atheist  at  a  time  when  such  were  more 
rare  than  they  are  today,  an  anti-militarist  from  bitter  personal 
experience,  was  admired  by  Reitzel,  and  not  least  for  his 
words:  "I  will  say  the  truth,  if  it  will  cost  me  my  life."  But 
if  Reitzel  admired  a  man  for  his  character,  he  was  far  from 
thereby  agreeing  with  all  his  views,  as,  for  example,  when  the 
revolutionary  Borne  turns  his  vicious  criticism  on  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  he  refuses  to  follow  the  critic,  although  he  enjoys  his 
satires  very  much.  Reitzel  confesses  that  this  is  not  easy  for 
him,  because  his  heart  is  so  much  stronger  than  his  head,  still, 
if  at  times  he  is  silent  about  the  failings  of  his  friends,  yet  he 
never  overlooks  the  greatness  of  his  enemies.  A  clever,  strik- 
ing expression  always  took  Reitzel's  fancy,  such  as  Borne's, 
"VVer  die  Bettdecke  von  der  schlummernden  Wahrheit  abzieht, 
den  nennt  man  einen  Ruhestorer." 

Reitzel  was  anything  but  a  Lebenskiinstler,  and  this  *'bo- 
hemianism"  in  his  own  life  enabled  him  to  appreciate  fully  a 
Zigeuner  like  Lenau.  He  tells  the  life-story  of  this  unhappy 
poet  with  a  warmth  that  makes  the  reader  re-create  the  inter- 
spersed verse  of  the  Hungarian  count  so  that  he  feels  them  in 
their  full  force  and  melancholy  beauty.  He  rates  Lenau  very 
high  and  makes  the  claim  that  he  has  said  many  things  better 
than  Goethe.  As  an  example  he  quotes  the  well-known  words 
from  Faust: 

"Die  wenigen,  die  was  davon  erkannt, 
Die  toricht  g'nug  ihr  voiles  Herz  nicht  wahrten, 
Dem  Pobel  ihr  Gefiihl,  ihr  Schauen  offenbarten, 
Hat  man  von  je  gekreuzigt  und  verbrannt." 

comparing  them  to  Lenau's  expression  of  the  same  thought  in 
which  he  says  a  most  rare  agreement  in  the  poetical  picture  and 
the  idea  are  to  be  found : 

"Haltst  du  die  Arme  Liebend  ausgebreitet 
Um  die  Welt  zu  driicken  an  dein  Herz 
So  bist  du  schon  zur  Kreuzigung  bereitet." 


Robert  Reitzel  69 

Lenau's  stay  in  America  was  very  short,  like  Liliencron  and 
many  other  Germans  with  more  love  for  art  than  for  dollars, 
he  was  driven  back  to  Germany,  amerikamiide.  The  same  con- 
flict that  runs  thru  most  of  the  Heimweh  poetry  of  German- 
Americans  is  also  dividing  Reitzel's  soul ;  America  is  great  and 
full  of  opportunities  but  Germany  has  Stimmung,  a  message  for 
the  soul  which  he  fails  to  find  here.^^ 

Lenau  before  the  huge  hearth  fire  of  the  log  hut  in  the 
backwoods  exclaims,  "Uhland,  wie  steht's  mit  der  Freiheit 
daheim!"  voicing  a  sentiment  of  thousands  who  came  to  these 
shores  during  the  time  of  Metternich.  In  Reitzel's  opinion  this 
applied  fully  as  much  in  Bismarck's  time.  Uhland  was  to  his 
mind  the  best  Jugenderzieher  for  the  German  youth,  for  he 
taught  courage  and  manly  pride.  He  was  not  a  radical  revolu- 
tionist but  a  virile  healthy  character  in  all  that  he  wrote.  Nor 
would  Reitzel  place  him  among  the  greatest  artists,  his  poetry 
was  like  "gut  ausgebackenes,  echt  deutsches  Brot."  He  loves 
Uhland's  ballads,  thinks  highly  of  his  work  in  reviving  the  true 
middle  ages,  is  charmed  by  his  Minnelieder  and  collections  of 
folk  songs  (Reitzel  wrote  two  long  essays  on  the  folk  songs 
collected  by  Uhland),  but  he  wants  to  tell  his  readers  about  one 
side  of  the  man  that  others  neglect — his  love  of  liberty  and  his 
courage  in  telling  the  truth,  even  to  princes. 

Like  all  of  Ji'mgstdeutschland,  Reitzel  was  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  Keller.  Die  drei  gerechten  Kammacher  was  his  favor- 
ite short  story  in  all  literature.  In  an  essay  on  Keller's  lyric 
poetry,  he  says:  "So  gefallt  uns  die  Kellersche  Lyrik  am  besten 
wenn  sie  der  Formschonheit  und  dem  Naturverstandnis  noch 
die  Schalkhaftigkeit  eines  gesunden  Humors  hinzufiigt."  Tho 
Gottfried  Keller  was  anything  but  a  social  poet,  yet  he  was  too 
honest  a  man  to  overlook  in  his  nature-poetry  that  man  was  a 
part  of  nature.  The  time  of  the  full  harvest  brought  a  feeling 
of  happy  satisfaction  to  the  poet,  yet  he  could  not  overlook  in 
this  picture  of  great  plenty  the  hollow  cheeks  of  the  homeless 
poor.     His  love  poetry  is  not  rated  so  high  by  Reitz'=*^    it  does 


"  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  335- 


70  Robert  Reitzel 

not  compare  at  all  with  Goethe's  or  Heine's,  there  is  too  much 
of  reflection  to  allow  one  to  think  that  Keller  had  ever  "recht 
narrisch  gekiiszt."  The  gentle  irony  of  the  Legendcn  which  is 
so  delicate  that  these  legends  could  well  be  enjoyed  by  a  simple 
and  devout  Catholic  does  by  no  means  escape  Reitzel.  He  says, 
he  should  like  to  see  the  "Schmunzeln  und  Wetterleuchten"  that 
would  flit  over  the  face  of  a  well-educated  priest  absorbed  in 
these  tales  which  are  more  pagan  than  Christian  and  yet  con- 
tain no  offensive  mockery.  Reitzel  reprints  some  sketches  from 
Keller's  Nachlass,  as  usual  browsing  about  in  remote  parts  of 
literature  to  present  his  readers  with  hidden  gems.  Keller's 
forceful,  gripping  way  of  telling  a  story  with  deep  human  in- 
terest and  his  keen  appreciation  and  description  of  nature  ought 
to  be  a  model  for  young  Germany  of  the  day. 

In  the  discussion  of  Keller's  great  contemporary,  Theodor 
Storm,  Reitzel  again  finds  occasion  for  an  unfavorable  compari- 
son to  the  literature  of  the  day :  "These  young  Germans  have 
lost  the  quiet  leisure  in  their  work,  they  are  not  content  with 
simple  things.  H  they  are  vain  they  will  turn  up  their  noses 
at  such  poetry  as  some  gems  in  Storm,  if  they  are  honest  then 
it  must  seem  to  them  like  a  glimpse  of  a  lost  paradise."**^  It 
is  the  simplicity  and  lack  of  morbidity  combined  with  the  highest 
art  in  Storm  which  appeals  strongly  to  Reitzel. 

Reitzel  counts  it  one  of  the  big  events  in  his  life  when  he 
discovered  Fritz  Renter  while  serving  as  an  apprentice  in  a  wine 
cellar  in  Baltimore.  He  calls  him  a  real  poet  with  a  deep  in- 
sight into  life  and  a  truthful  portrayal  of  human  nature.  As  to 
Reuter's  efforts  in  behalf  of  liberty  Reitzel  does  not  think  that 
they  amounted  to  very  much.  He  thinks  Reuter's  prison  term 
was  due  to  his  impudent  boldness.  In  telling  the  biography  of 
Renter  one  event  stands  out  particularly,  a  thing  that  Reitzel 
spoke  of  often  and  which  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  an  ideal 
with  him,  that  is,  a  calm,  collected  death,  true  to  the  life  that 
the  man  had  led. 

Another  novel  of  the  older  school  that  was  a  favorite  with 


"  Gesammelte  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  260. 


Robert  Reitzel  71 

the  literary  revolutionists  in  Germany  was  also  highly  praised 
by  Reitzel,  Vischer's  Auch  Eincr.  Reitzel  appreciates  his  origi- 
nality, his  humor,  and  above  all  his  big  heart  and  simple  whole- 
hearted enjoyment  of  life.  The  fact  that  the  old  philosophic 
traveler  could  kiss  the  beautiful  Italian  girl  and  then  explain 
in  childish  glee,  "Und  sie  hat's  erst  nicht  abgewischt!"  In  a 
longer  essay  Trutsworte  suni  Aerger  holier er  Hausknechte  von 
Auch  Einer  und  mir  Reitzel  quotes  many  fine  sentiments  from 
this  most  original  novel. 

Tho  Reitzel  showed  much  greater  fondness  for  the  wine 
songs  of  Mirsa  S chaffy  than  present  critics  think  good  taste,  he 
agrees  with  the  now  quite  prevalent  opinion  that  Scheflfel's 
poetry  was  hugely  overestimated.  He  sees  much  to  admire  in 
the  poet  of  the  Trompeter,  but  he  finds  a  touch  of  philistinism 
in  this  dual  personality,  the  poet  of  the  carefree  life  of  wine, 
women,  and  song,  and  the  bureaucrat  eager  to  win  distinction 
in  the  field  of  law.  Since  Reitzel's  home  was  in  Baden,  he  was 
quite  familiar  with  the  country  described  by  Scheifel  and  he  had 
even  met  the  poet  at'  the  house  of  his  uncle  in  his  youth.  As 
usual  Reitzel  also  discusses  the  less  known  works  of  the  poet.  He 
found  many  good  things  to  say  for  Schefifel's  Episteln,  "alles 
so  herzig  und  schon." 

Another  epic  poet  received  great  praise  from  Reitzel,  the 
Catholic,  F.  W.  Weber.  The  genuine  qualities  of  Dreizehnlindcn 
were  quite  impartially  praised  in  the  Arme  Teufel.  Reitzel 
could  not  suppress  a  bit  of  pride  that  his  radical  paper  found 
so  much  to  praise  in  a  Catholic,  and  he  doubted  whether  any 
other  "Uhu  oder  Spotter"  would  do  as  much. 

In  spite  of  the  radical  lenses  thru  which  Reitzel  naturally 
looked  out  upon  the  world,  one  might  guess  from  the  above- 
mentioned  examples  that  there  was  enough  of  the  Romanticist 
in  him  to  make  of  him  a  lover  of  fairy  tales.  Andersen's  book 
was  to  him  a  new  kind  of  fairy  story,  a  wonderfully  fantastic 
land  of  the  imagination  for  children  which  at  the  same  time  con- 
tains a  soul  for  the  thinking  person.  It  is  a  book  from  which 
one  can  regain  the  best  that  life  offers  us,  eternal  youth.     We 


72  Robert  Reitsel 

become  poets  in  reading  Andersen  and  if  we  pause  to  think  we 
find  in  Tom  Thumb,  the  Httle  tin  soldier,  and  others,  a  morahty 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  noble  thoughts  and  a  philosophy 
of  life. 

We  have  seen  before  that  Reitzel  was  not  afraid  to  change 
his  mind,  nor  to  admit  this.  In  his  first  review  of  the  Versun- 
kene  Glocke  he  says  that  the  play  could  never  be  produced  on 
the  stage.  A  little  later  he  writes :  'T  have  read  the  first  act 
aloud  twice  and  I  can't  imagine  why  I  thought  that  it  could 
not  be  played.  Really,  my  impression  was  the  same  as  when 
I  read  Faust  for  the  first  time.  But  I  can't  call  it  a  modern 
Faust,  like  a  certain  Harvard  professor."  The  first  act  was 
reprinted  in  the  Arme  Teufel. 

Reitzel  addressed  himself  to  Germans  in  the  German  lan- 
guage and  dealt  therefore  mostly  with  German  literature.     How- 
ever, his  knowledge  of  literature  was  by  no  means  confined  to 
the  writings  of  one  nation,  he  was  most  cosmopolitan  in  his 
tastes.     It  is,  of  course,  not  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to 
give  Reitzel's  opinion  on  every  author,   but   I   have  attempted 
to  mention  only  a  few  typical  examples  to  show  his  close  rela- 
tion to  the  young  generation  of  German  poets  of  the  'eighties, 
and  to  show  at  the  same  time  how  much  broader  was  his  point 
of  view  than  that  of  the  Gesellschaft,  which  was  ultra-modern, 
putting  naturalism  above  all  else.     Another  instance  of  the  sim- 
ilarity of  thought  of  Reitzel  and  the  German  group  is  to  be 
found  in  the  great  admiration  both  feel  for  Walt  Whitman.    To 
both  he  was  America's  greatest  poet.     America,  unlike  France 
or  Germany,  has  no  group  of  young  poets  writing  social  poetry. 
This  field  is  quite  undeveloped  in  America,  said  Reitzel.     The 
only  poet  of  whom  it  might  be  said  that  he  realizes  the  duty  of 
America  to  act  as  mediator  in  bringing  on  world  peace  and  the 
growth  of  a  free  humanity  is  Walt  Whitman.     Quite  aside  from 
his  powerful  iconoclastic  free  rhythms  Reitzel  admired  the  man's 
personality,  his  humane  service  in  the  Civil  W^ar,  his  disregard 
for   public   opinion    in   living  his   life   as   he   pleased,   and   his 
boldness,  which  made  him  unpopular. 


Robert  Reitzel  73 

Reitzel  was  a  great  admirer  of  Thoreau  who  had  taught 
him  a  love  for  traveling  alone.  He  compared  him  to  Nietzsche 
in  his  love  of  solitude. 

Reitzel  reviewed  and  reprinted  a  vast  amount  of  modern 
literature  in  his  Arme  Teufel.  Die  Gcsellschaft,  Moderne 
Dichtercharaktere ,  Der  Nebelspalter  and  other  German  maga- 
zines furnished  poems  and  short  stories  for  his  paper.  Entire 
books  like  Claude  Tillier's  Onkel  Benjamin,  Vischer's  Faust, 
drifter  Teil,  and  others  of  a  somewhat  unusual  character  were 
reprinted  serially.  Poems  by  one  hundred  and  eighty-one 
modern  German  poets  appeared  in  the  Arme  Teufel,  about  one- 
tenth  of  them  written  "fiir  den  Armen  Teufel,"  many  translations 
from  English  and  French,  and  about  sixty  poems  by  Reitzel 
himself.  A  list  of  poets  with  the  number  of  their  poems  which 
appeared  in  the  Arme  Teufel  follows:  Henckell  (45),  Edna 
Fern  (43),  Eduard  Dorsch  (41),  Mackay  (31),  Emil  Seytter 
(26),  Keller  (21),  Robert  Seidel  (21),  von  Stern  (15),  Vischer 
(14),  Bruno  Wille  (13),  Straubenmiiller  (11),  Dehmel  (10), 
Baumbach  (10),  Konrad  Nies  (10),  Schlick  (8),  Eugenie  delle 
Grazie  (8),  Pfau  (8),  Biedenkapp  (7),  Falke  (6),  Drescher 
(5),  Dranmor  (6),  Scheffel  (5),  Tarnuzzer  (5),  Liliencron 
(8),  Jacoby  (10)',  Curti  (6),  von  Bodman  (5),  Busse 
(4),  Beck  (4),  Heinzen  (3).  Of  these  thirty  leading  contribu- 
tors eleven  were  German  Americans,  a  fact  which  shows  that 
the  paper  was  truly  representative  of  German- American  art  and 
appreciated  by  the  poets  of  this  country  who  wrote  in  the  Ger- 
man language.  Never  before  nor  since  has  there  been  such  a 
representative  German-American  belletristic  and  esthetic  journal. 

But  Reitzel's  own  work  did  much  more  for  the  spread  of 
interest  in  the  best  of  German  and  other  literatures  than  the 
printing  of  these  poems  and  stories.  Week  after  week  Reitzel 
took  up  some  German  author  or  some  particular  book  and  dis- 
cussed it  in  his  vivid  and  generous  fashion.  He  took  a  great 
deal  of  pride  in  this  work  and  it  must  be  said  that  it  is  a  unique 
cultural  act  in  America.  He  had  a  way  of  weaving  illustrations 
of  the  poet's  verse  into  his  essay  so  that  the  reader  is  often 
pleasantly  surprised  by  the  rhythmic  cadences  in  the  page  printed 


74  Robert  Reitzel 

as  prose.  Reitzel  speaks  of  this  on  one  occasion  in  the  first 
paragraph  of  his  essay,  Aus  cincni  Dichterhcrncn.  He  recalls 
the  old  fairv  tale  of  the  good  child  who  found  that  when  it 
tried  to  throw  stones  they  were  immediately  turned  into  roses, 
and  that  in  this  way  a  man  had  tried  to  throw  a  stone  at  him 
by  saying  that  Reitzel  presented  to  his  readers  in  prose  what 
the  best  German  poets  had  said  in  verse.  This  stone  is  turned 
into  a  rose,  for  if  he  does  this  he  has  attained  his  ideal,  which 
is  that  his  articles  should  read  like  poetry  turned  into  prose, 
the  poetic  language  of  the  greatest  artists  in  a  newspaper.  'Teh 
meine  es  gibt  keine  schonere  Aufgabe  als  das  ewig  Schone  und 
das  ewig  Wahre,  das  was  die  Dichter  in  ihren  Liedern  verkor- 
pert,  so  viel  als  moglich  in  unserm  alltiiglichen  Leben  heimisch, 
so  viel  als  moglich  dem  arbeitenden  Manne,  der  arbeitenden  Frau 
zu  eigen  zu  machen." 


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